


All the Redemption I Can Offer

by Lady_in_Red



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bodyguard, Canon - Book, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Private Investigators, Road Trips, Sexual Tension, Smut, liminal space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-10-13 14:35:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20584106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_in_Red/pseuds/Lady_in_Red
Summary: After months on the road looking for Sansa and Arya Stark, Brienne asks Jaime to meet her at Pennytree.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title and inspiration from "Thunder Road" by Bruce Springsteen
> 
>   
_Show a little faith, there's magic in the night_  
_You ain't a beauty but, hey, you're alright_  
_Oh, and that's alright with me_

She wouldn’t do this again. Brienne had promised herself even as she sent the text message.

_ Need to talk. Best Westeros, Pennytree, Thursday, 7 p.m., if you can meet me. _

Now the message sat there, unanswered, and she regretted ever sending it. His number had been programmed into her phone for months, taunting her every time the trail of breadcrumbs she was following yielded a dead end. Who knew there were so many missing girls with auburn hair and blue eyes? 

Brienne had followed Sansa’s trail to Rosby, Maidenpool, Crackclaw Point, and into the Riverlands. With her striking hair and pretty face, Sansa would stand out even if Arya managed to blend in. Brienne had checked every hostel and shelter between Riverrun and King’s Landing, wandered school campuses all over the Crownlands, and spent too many nights in the shadows in clubs and bars watching the girls come and go. 

In every town, she flashed their photos, listened to anyone who thought they’d seen something. Most were just looking for reward money or had seen someone else. She wasn’t even sure the Stark girls would come with her if she found them. Why would they? Their parents were dead, their brothers scattered to the four winds, and they had no reason to trust a woman they’d never met.

After months driving the highways and backroads of Westeros, Brienne had no idea where the Stark girls were. She'd set out looking for Dontos Hollard, their drunken drama teacher, who’d disappeared at the same time, but that trail had gone cold when his body turned up in Blackwater Bay. Whoever had helped the girls disappear from the gilded cage of their King’s Landing prep school had known what they were doing. She refused to believe that Hollard had acted alone. 

Empty road stretched out ahead of her, the ancient River Road a tree-lined rut beside the blacktop. Miles ahead that track would meet up with the old Kingsroad, rolling thousands of miles north all the way to the ruins of the Wall. She didn’t mind the countryside, but she found no peace in the undulating hills and woodlands. Here Brienne was alone with her thoughts. Alone with her failures, and the guilt that gnawed at her. If she failed to find the girls, she’d fail Jaime. She’d fail Catelyn again, as she’d failed Renly. Two dead clients and two lost girls. No one would ever hire a bodyguard with her record. She would have to slink home to her father and admit that she’d been wrong to leave the island in the first place.

She’d thought more than once about driving back to King’s Landing, to Jaime, and confessing her failure. Would he comfort her? Let her cry on his shoulder? That was what men wanted, wasn’t it, soft, helpless women who needed their protection? No, that wasn’t her, and that certainly wasn’t him.

Brienne shifted in her seat and wished again that the sleek crimson Shadowcat Jaime had given her wasn’t so small. Nor so recognizable. She and Jaime had been carjacked in this very car on their way south less than a year ago. Perhaps that was why Jaime had given it to her, unwilling to stand the sight of either Brienne or the cursed car for another moment. 

Brienne turned on the radio to drown out her own thoughts. She missed Podrick singing along in the passenger seat and leaving junk food wrappers all over the floor. She even missed Hyle. Not his fumbling attempts to get into Brienne’s bed, but his company and the loyalty his guilt bought her. He would knock some sense into her, if he was here. Jaime had sent her after the Stark girls to get rid of her. He didn’t care about them or her. 

But Hyle wasn’t here and she wasn’t about to call him. She’d sent Hyle and Podrick off to the Vale following one lead, while she went to Hollow Hill following another. Cell signal was notoriously spotty in the Mountains of the Moon. She wouldn’t worry until she hadn’t heard from them for a few more days. By then she’d be able to pull herself back together. 

Brienne exited the highway at Pennytree, passed the old fortress with its modern re-creation of the ancient stockade, and found the familiar blue sign marking the Best Westeros motel, a cheap chain found everywhere. She could afford better, but she hated using the money Jaime direct-deposited in her checking account every month. He’d called it “gas money” when she reluctantly agreed to take it. She was hundreds of miles away by the time she realized his “gas money” was more than she’d ever earned as a bodyguard. Jaime’s gold dragons piled up in her account while Brienne used as few of them as she could.

The motel’s name was incongruous with the reality: a poorly-lit restaurant and bar, and functional, outdated rooms that would never look clean now matter how well-scrubbed. The carpet and bedding would light up with all manner of horrific stains under blacklight, but Brienne accepted her key and took her duffel bag up to her room anyway. She needed a shower and a change of clothes before she could bear to face the restaurant and its lack of broad shoulders and piercing green eyes. 

The showerhead was too low, the water pressure abysmal, and her shampoo had leaked all over her toiletry bag, leaving a cracked yellow cake of soap the only option for washing her hair, but Brienne still felt miles better as she dried herself with the scratchy towel. A button-down flannel shirt and a bandana loosely knotted around her throat hid most of her scrapes and bruises, but nothing could hide her swollen lip or her black eye.

People would stare. They always did. She was used to being conspicuous. At least tonight she could pretend her injuries drew their attention, not the novelty of a woman so massive and plain. A quiet meal, nothing too challenging to eat with her lip still sore, and then she’d sleep. No need to rush away in the morning as she’d done so many times. She was out of leads, out of ideas. Perhaps just this once she would drink enough to chase away the nightmares. She had a bottle of the Ibbenese vodka her father used to drink, untouched since Hyle joined them. Without him sniffing around her, inventing reasons to come to her door late at night, she could afford to let go just this once.

The stairwell stank of piss, an unpromising start to her evening, but the lobby smelled of fried food and cheap beer. Her stomach rumbled. Breakfast had been at least ten hours ago, with nothing but coffee since. She paused in the doorway separating lobby from restaurant, quickly scanning the customers for potential trouble. 

Families passing through. Truckers doing the same. A few locals watching sports or drowning their sorrows in pints of beer. And a man in a white T-shirt, his grey-flecked beard the only part of his face visible under the ballcap pulled low over his eyes, playing with his phone. 

He’d come. Jaime Lannister was sitting in a back booth of a crappy restaurant in the heart of the Riverlands, trying desperately not to stand out and failing miserably. Yet Brienne couldn’t move.

Hyle was right. He’d teased her from the start about her penchant for pretty boys, but his comments had grown sharper and more bitter over time. The last night they’d traveled together, he’d stayed up with her in the bar well after Podrick went back to his room. When Hyle finally stood, he’d held out his hand. “Come upstairs, let me give you what you need. Your white knight never will.” There was nothing cruel in his voice, not that time, but there was no love either. Hyle was just as mercenary in his affections now as he had been when they first met years ago at Highgarden.

The denial had sprung to her lips automatically. “Jaime isn’t mine.” 

Hyle’s smile had been frustrated. He’d put in the time, there was no denying that. But his heart would never be in it. He’d sighed. “But you’re still his. Damned fool.”

Brienne _ was _his. She couldn’t deny the way her heart pounded just seeing Jaime. 

She was merely Catelyn Stark’s bodyguard when they first met, in the actual dungeons of Riverrun. The castle was still in Mrs. Stark’s family, and Robb Stark had found it amusing to capture Jaime Lannister and hold him until his father was finally willing to negotiate. Jaime, after lengthy interrogation under the influence of not enough food and too much wine, was to be returned to King’s Landing, where Brienne would withdraw the girls from their school and return them to their mother. 

The plan had fallen apart when they were carjacked, and gotten worse after they escaped as they wandered lost in the forests and fields of the Riverlands long enough for Jaime’s injured hand to get horribly infected. By the time they were rescued and returned to civilization, he wasn’t her prisoner anymore. What he was, she couldn’t say.

They’d had no contact since she left King’s Landing, and in his absence her imagination had colored their history, layered meaning onto every glance, every touch. He didn’t think of her, not the way she dreamed of him. But he was here.

Jaime looked so different from the prideful, angry man she’d first met, malnourished, hair so matted and dirty that he’d begged her to hack it all off. She’d left the beard to shield his identity, not that it mattered in the end. He looked different even from the sarcastic but dutiful man she’d left in King’s Landing, clean-shaven and dressed in a dark suit, gold and ruby cufflinks winking at his wrists. He adjusted his ballcap, giving her a brief glimpse of his hair, grown in thick and golden, a few threads of silver at the temples. He’d grown back his beard too, clipped close to his sharp jaw. So familiar, but different enough to make her wary.

Jaime Lannister might have a desk job now, but he’d spent long years in the Special Forces and then the Secret Service. Had he come to Pennytree to escape the confines of his office or to see her? Or did this play into his family’s schemes somehow? She’d never really understood the shifting alliances and generations-long feuds between the Starks, the Lannisters, and the Baratheons. That was all above her pay grade, but they treated it like war instead of business. 

The uncertainty was killing her. Brienne wanted to run, to maintain her illusions about him just a little longer. At the same time, she wanted to give him every piece of herself, knowing he could break her utterly with no more than a handful of words.

Brienne approached his table, scanning the faces around them again from force of habit, trying to decide if he’d come alone, and slid into the other side of the booth. “You came.” 

Jaime was still messing with his phone. “I was on my way to Riverrun to meet up with Daven. Besides, you never call. Figured it had to be something—” He finally looked up, and Brienne watched a riot of emotions flicker across his face. “You’re hurt.”

She snatched up a menu to avoid looking at him, but the words blurred. Damn it, crying was the worst thing she could do. Brienne bit her swollen lip viciously, willing away the tears. She tasted blood. “It’s nothing. Bar fight.” Her voice was still a little hoarse. Nothing to be done about that.

“Right.” Jaime’s disbelieving drawl made her flush. If he was smirking too, that arrogant grin that shouldn’t look so good on him, she’d be lost. 

But he wasn’t. His gaze traveled over her face, seeing right past the unruly blonde hair hanging loose to disguise the worst of the damage, and his expression showed nothing but concern. “A bar fight? Threw down with some frat boys over football, did you?”

“Bikers,” she mumbled. The Cave was the headquarters of the Brotherhood Without Banners, not that she’d known that when she walked in. And when some of them started aggressively propositioning a couple of girls who’d had the misfortune to wander in asking for directions, she’d had no choice but to intervene. The worst part was, just for a moment, she’d thought they might be Sansa and Arya, but they weren’t. 

Jaime barked a harsh laugh. “What were you doing in a fucking biker bar?” 

“I got a tip,” she muttered. “Said the Hound had her.” Sandor Clegane was once Joffrey Baratheon’s bodyguard, which meant he’d spent a lot of time with Sansa.

“The Hound? Rumor has it he’s dead. You didn’t see him, did you?” 

Brienne shook her head. “Just a guy who’d stolen his helmet.” The Hound had worn a custom-painted motorcycle helmet, easily recognized. The man who wore it now certainly didn’t mind trading on the Hound’s brutal reputation.

Jaime watched her for longer than was comfortable. A skinny dark-haired waitress came up to take their order, staring avidly at Jaime the whole time. That was nothing new. Women always stared at Jaime. Brienne’s stomach churned with acid, and her lip was throbbing again. She ordered soup, while Jaime ordered a patty melt with fries and a chocolate shake. 

Jaime drummed his fingers restlessly on the scarred wooden table as the waitress walked away. His right hand was marked with dark, sunken patches of skin where infected wounds had nearly cost him the entire hand. They should’ve just handed over the car, but no, Jaime Lannister wouldn’t negotiate with thugs. 

“How is it healing?” she asked, gesturing toward his hand.

He grimaced. “It’s as good as it’ll ever be. Can’t shoot for shit with that hand anymore. Can’t write. Might as well have cut the damn thing off.”

“Jaime,” she chided. She’d spent hours picking gravel out of his wounds, washing and dressing and splinting his fingers after their captors had stomped his hand and left the wounds to fester for two days before they managed to escape. Somehow it had never occurred to the men who’d taken them that double-dipping on grand theft auto and a kidnap-for-ransom scheme required them to keep Jaime alive.

He glared down at his hand, flexing it and watching the scars pull. “You said you needed to talk," he grumbled. "I thought you’d found something.” 

“I'm sorry.” A paltry offering. She knew what he would assume when she made contact, and she’d done it anyway. 

“All these months, you just disappeared. I kept thinking you'd check in, but you never did. If you don’t have the Stark girls, why’d you call, Brienne?” There was nothing of the calculating, cutting Jaime Lannister she’d once known in him now, his gaze earnest and confusion lacing his voice.

She could just tell Jaime she'd missed him, tell him she was lonely and tired and felt more like a failure with each passing day. But if he mocked her, or worse, if he agreed that she'd failed, she didn't think she could take it. “I shouldn’t have. Just … forget it. Sorry I wasted your time.” Brienne wrenched herself out of the booth, pain lancing through her ribs at the sudden movement, and barreled through the restaurant, her face burning. She heard him calling her name but didn’t stop until she was safely inside her room again. 


	2. Chapter 2

Brienne slumped on the hideous floral coverlet of the double bed, and waited for her heartbeat to slow. After a few minutes, she got up and went to the window, twitching the curtains to the side. The parking lot was fuller than when she’d arrived. A battered blue truck parked at the far end, closest to the exit, looked familiar. It had a gun rack mounted in the back window and she could swear she’d seen it on the highway several times today. She’d like to think she was just being paranoid, but she’d been followed before. She memorized the truck’s license plate before moving on. 

The Shadowcat, now considerably dirtier than when Jaime had handed her the keys, stood out in a parking lot full of dingy sedans and minivans. He was leaning against the trunk of the car next to it, a black Pentoshi coupe with a rental sticker in the back window. The fading light hid his expression. He was talking on his phone, probably explaining to his cousin why he was running late. He’d be gone in a few minutes, and she could put this whole episode out of her mind until she found Sansa and Arya. Even then, she needn’t see him, just arrange transport for the car and mail his keys back to him. 

In retrospect, she’d always known this was how it would end. Jaime was capable of deep feeling, but not for her. They’d been allies because of circumstance, not because of any real connection. The loyalty they still felt for each other was tied up in those memories, nothing more. Of course she’d had to make a fool of herself to get that through her thick skull. Her teachers had always said she was slow, and in this Brienne was inclined to believe them. She should have learned after Renly. No man looked at her as anything more than a useful curiosity at best. 

Brienne moved away from the window, picked at the knot of her bandana until it loosened and she could drop it into her duffel. She pulled out her laptop, kicked off her shoes, and settled back on the bed. She could write up her report, such as it was, on Hollow Hill, and go back to the restaurant in a few minutes, once Jaime left. She never sent him her reports, but she’d developed the habit years ago and never stopped. If the Stranger came for her before she found the girls, someone would be able to pick up where she left off.

She was just finishing up when there was a knock at her door. A chill ran down her spine. It was too late for housekeeping, and no one knew which room she was in unless they’d been watching her when she arrived. Brienne set aside the laptop and drew her knife from her bag before checking the peephole. 

Jaime stood there holding a plastic carrier bag. He’d lost the ballcap, and now she could see the silver in his hair wasn’t just in his beard. Grey flecked the gold along his temples as well, and he had the beginnings of crow’s feet around his eyes. He’d been aged by their ordeal, looking every day of his 40 years, and yet Jaime was even more appealing for those minor flaws. They made him more real. 

Reluctantly, Brienne opened the door, her traitorous heart pounding harder when his eyes brightened as they settled on her. 

“You left without your dinner,” he scolded, pushing past her into the room. He didn’t even flinch when he saw her knife, nodded approvingly at it instead. 

“How did you know which room was mine?” She dropped the knife back into her bag and barely had the door locked again before Jaime had filled the tabletop with open styrofoam containers. The meals they’d ordered before she took off. 

“Their security is a joke. I told the front desk clerk my wife and I had a fight, and she told me your room number. Don’t stay in one of these shitholes again.” Jaime dropped into a chair and crammed a fry into his mouth. “Sit down, eat,” he ordered. 

“Bossy,” she grumbled, but she took the other chair and rummaged through the bag until she found a spoon. The gnawing emptiness in her stomach went away as she ate her soup. It was simultaneously too watery and too salty, overcooked until the vegetables fell apart in her mouth, but it was hot and filling and didn’t make her mouth hurt anymore than it already did. 

Jaime pushed a few fries her way when her soup was gone. He tried to offer her some of his milkshake, but she refused in favor of the iced tea she’d ordered. She thought longingly of the vodka in her bag, wondering if that might take the edge off her nerves. 

He frowned as he looked her over. “You look like shit, you know.”

That was more like it. Jaime coddling her was too strange to endure for long. “You don’t. It’s annoying.”

“I’m using a new shampoo,” he said with a grin. “That and, you know, not dying of sepsis.” 

“You grew back the beard.” Jaime’s health and an appeal to his vanity seemed like safe topics. Certainly safer than questioning his continued presence here.

Jaime shrugged and stole back one of his fries, but she saw the smirk he was trying to hide. “Cersei said it made me look like a filthy hobo.”

Brienne rolled her eyes. “No, you looked like a filthy hobo when we left Riverrun. By the time she saw you, you just looked like a mildly-deranged toddler cut your hair.” Jaime had been thin and weak and wearing ill-fitting secondhand clothes, but he’d looked a million times better at the end of their journey than at the beginning. And while she’d been the one to cut his hair, Brienne had accomplished it with a pocket knife, so its general terribleness was hardly her fault.

They shared a smile for a moment, lost in the few good, or at least amusing, memories of their time together. Then Jaime’s grin faded. “You gonna tell me what really happened to you?”

“I told you. Bar fight.” Keep it simple. That was the only way to lie. She shoved a fry in her mouth, the salt burning her swollen, bitten lip.

Jaime shook his head. “I’ve been in a lot of fights, Brienne. Never been choked like that.” He touched his throat, grimacing.

Shit. She’d taken off the bandana, exposing the raw, red stripe around her throat. “My fault. I got between him and the girl he wanted to fuck on the pool table.” The biker had used much more degrading language, and hand gestures in case anyone hadn’t understood his heavily-accented threats. He’d been taking off his studded belt when Brienne stood up and told him to leave the girl alone. The belt was the first thing he hit her with, and then he’d gotten it around her throat. 

Jaime scrubbed a hand over his face. “What the fuck was I thinking sending you out here alone?”

Brienne frowned. “I wasn’t alone.”

Jaime pushed his carton and its remaining fries toward her. “Podrick doesn’t count. He’s 15. And why the fuck isn’t he back in school?”

“Because the school didn’t want him back once your brother’s legal problems locked up his assets. Plus the girls know him,” Brienne reminded him. Funny how Jaime had never noticed the boy didn’t return to school. Tyrion was in jail, he could hardly be blamed for the oversight.

“He’s useless in a fight,” Jaime protested, and he was right. Podrick could barely throw a punch when they’d met. He was a bit better now, but still a weedy teenager better off running away if it came to a real fight.

She shouldn’t have to remind him of this. “I protect other people for a living. I can handle myself.”

“Yeah? How’d you handle that?” He pointed at her throat. 

Brienne started cleaning up the empty food containers, shoving them into the carrier bag. “The bartender cracked a pool cue on his skull and reminded his buddies that murder would put the bar on the cops’ radar.” The girls were already long gone when that happened. They hadn’t even waited to make sure she would be okay, nor had they called the police. 

Jaime pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped something, then held it to his ear. 

“Don’t bother calling the cops. Nothing they can do.” Brienne dumped the trash in the wastebasket and moved to sit on the bed. She hadn’t slept much last night, and exhaustion was setting in. 

Jaime ignored her. “Peck, hey, I need you to do something.” He waited, listening to his assistant. “I need a plane ticket. Riverrun to Evenfall.”

Brienne shot up and took the phone. “Forget that, Peck. Thanks.” She hung up and tossed the phone back at him. “I’m not going home, Jaime. Those girls are still out there.”

Jaime’s jaw tightened as he stood and jammed his phone back in his pocket. His glare was truly something to behold, his eyes blazing. But if he was trying to intimidate her, he’d failed. On his best day Jaime was at least an inch shorter than her. “You could have been killed. It’s not worth it.”

“It is to me,” she protested. “I can handle it.”

“Yeah? Is this the first fight you’ve been in since you left me?” He made it sound like she’d run off in the night. They’d met in Jaime’s office and he’d walked her to the building’s underground parking garage, where the Shadowcat was waiting for her.

Brienne didn’t answer, just glared right back at him. She wasn’t about to tell him about running into some of the same thugs that had taken them, out in the wilds of Crackclaw Point. If Hyle hadn’t followed her from Maidenpool, she might not be here today. Hyle never let her forget it. She wasn’t about to give Jaime the same ammunition.

“That’s what I thought.” Jaime fell back a step and glanced around the motel room, his lip curling in distaste. “This the kind of place you usually stay? The point was to get those girls out of danger, not to put you in danger too. You need more money, just tell me.” 

She sighed and grabbed her laptop, shoving it back into her duffel. “It’s a room. I don’t need anything fancy. Bad enough that car practically screams that the Lannisters are bankrolling me.” She was frankly shocked it hadn’t been stolen again.

“Not the Lannisters, me,” Jaime protested. “Cersei would shit a brick if she knew about this.”

Cersei was always lurking in the shadows when she thought of Jaime, she didn’t need the man himself bringing her up. “Father forbid you do something she doesn’t like,” Brienne muttered. 

“That’s not fair.” He actually sounded hurt. Maybe because it was true.

“No? Last I checked, when she yanked your leash, you came to heel.” The words came out crueler than she’d intended. 

“No, that was you,” Jaime growled. “And you learned, didn’t you, that I’m no one’s pet.” He loomed over her, that dangerous glint in his eye that she hadn’t seen in so long.

Brienne reached up to shove him away, and Jaime grabbed her arm. She hissed in pain, wincing as he released her. She hadn’t realized her arm was so tender, but she hadn’t been squeezing it either.

“I’m sorry,” he sputtered, his face stricken, but then he took her arm again and pushed up her sleeve. He saw the bandage wrapped around her forearm, and his eyes darted up to meet hers. “I thought it was just your face and your throat.”

“I never said that.” Minimizing her injuries was an old habit, started when she was small and her father’s paranoia kept her stuck in the house and bored in the first year after her brother’s death. After finding her about to slide down the bannister of their staircase, her father had finally relented and let her play outside in the wide world that had taken Galladon so suddenly.

Jaime tapped the bandage lightly. “What is this?”

“A bite.” This room was too small. She needed space from him, but she didn’t want to give up ground either. Jaime would wear her down if he sensed weakness, and before she knew it she’d be on a plane heading home. 

“They had dogs?” Jaime sounded incredulous. Ramsay Bolton and his gang must not be well known in King’s Landing. Brienne felt lucky not to have encountered them personally yet.

“No.” When she’d tried to rip the guy’s belt from her throat, he’d leaned over and sunk his teeth into her arm, right through her shirt. 

Jaime made an awful, pained noise. He ran both hands through his hair, making it stand up in messy spikes. He crowded closer, his knees hitting the edge of the bed. “What else, Brienne? What aren’t you telling me?”

It took her a few beats too long to realize what Jaime thought had happened. Their kidnappers had been lonely, and hadn’t exactly minded a woman who fought back. Even Jaime’s lies that her father was some kind of mining magnate hadn’t deterred them until Brienne nearly bit off one of their ears. She still remembered the look on Jaime’s face as they’d dragged her away into the dark. 

Brienne reached up and laid a hand on his chest. “Hey, it’s not what you’re thinking. He cracked a couple ribs holding me down. That’s it.”

Jaime chuckled darkly. “That’s it? You didn’t even see a doctor, did you?” He saw the answer in her eyes. A doctor would have asked too many questions. His face darkened, fury in his tight jaw and blazing eyes. He spun on his heel and swept the little tray of overpriced water bottles and takeout menus off the dresser. He leaned against the dresser, breathing hard. “You could’ve been killed.” 

It was harder to tell herself that she was fine, that this was all just part of the job, when Jaime was so openly horrified by it. After all he’d seen, this shouldn’t affect him so much. It was also far too late for him to start treating her like a fragile maiden. “That’s the job, Jaime. My life for theirs. I failed Renly and Catelyn. I won’t fail these girls.”

“Your life for theirs? This isn’t the Secret Service, for fuck’s sake.” 

“No, if the Secret Service had been protecting him, maybe Renly would still be alive.” That fact burned, but she’d come to terms with it. One person couldn’t have stopped the conspiracies that took down both Renly and Catelyn, but she should have realized something was wrong before it was too late.

Slowly, Jaime turned back to face her. His voice was mocking. “That’s got to be a new record. It took you what, fifteen minutes to bring up Renly?” 

“How long did it take you to bring up  _ her_?” she countered. He’d already mentioned his sister twice, not noticing or not caring how Brienne flinched every time. 

“At least I can say his name. C’mon, Brienne. Just say it. It won’t summon her here.” 

Brienne shook her head. “I shouldn’t have called. Go home, I’m sure the two of you will have a good laugh at my expense.” Right before they fell into bed together. The thought made her nauseous. And jealous, shamefully so. Jaime wasn’t hers. He’d never been hers. He’d never be hers.

His eyes narrowed, and he bit his lip. He would say something cutting now, and prove just how much his sister’s creature he truly was. But he didn’t. His expression softened. “Why are we fighting about them? They’re not here, we are. You and me.”

She had to look away. “Tomorrow you’ll be with her instead.”

“No, I won’t,” Jaime corrected her. At her incredulous look, he added, “That’s what pissed her off, not the beard or how old I look or how long I was gone. I haven’t touched her since the day we got back to King’s Landing.” 

Brienne exhaled a shaky breath, knew she was doing a poor job concealing her surprise. “That’s none of my business.”

“Isn’t it?” His voice was sardonic. 

She had made no effort to disguise her revulsion when it came to the twins’ affair, though they’d carefully avoided the topic as much as possible. She couldn’t pretend that it didn’t bother her. Not so much because it was wrong, which it was, or that it sickened her, which it did, but because with Cersei he was the worst version of himself. Having seen his better nature, Brienne loathed the idea of that man poisoned by his sister’s ambitions. And yet she had no claim on him, only this search for the girls tying them together with their vow to Catelyn Stark. 

The bond between them was not something either of them had looked for or expected. Brienne had left Riverrun loathing him with every fiber of her being, and he’d insulted her so often she stopped listening to it. Knowing him, fighting with him, protecting each other, those had all changed the equation irrevocably. Caring for a Lannister, least of all him, had caused Brienne no end of grief. His gifts made others suspicious of her motives, and she couldn’t even bring herself to disavow him when asked. 

She couldn’t contradict him now either. It mattered that he’d forsaken Cersei’s bed these past months they’d been apart. 

“Why did you text me? After all this time.” The anger had left him. Jaime sounded as tired as she felt. Maybe he’d been driving all day too. She hadn’t even thought to ask.

Brienne tried to offer a reassuring smile. Nothing had changed. “Nostalgia. Momentary madness. It’ll pass.”

“Nostalgia for our captivity? Or for eating charred rabbit and picking ticks off each other? Or chasing off that godsdamned bear?” Jaime sounded skeptical, but his voice dropped with each question, low and amused. She wondered if he used this voice in interrogations, seducing confessions from the criminals his agents brought in. “Or the nights curled up together under the stars trying to keep warm?”

Brienne’s face heated against her will. Her body had always liked his, even when she loathed the rest of him. “Stop doing that.”

“What?” he asked, all innocence, but his eyes were dark and heated, intent on her face. 

“Looking at me like I’m lunch. It won’t work on me.” Brienne tried to sound unaffected. She didn’t think he was fooled. 

“No? Why not?” He was definitely amused now, a smile playing at his lips.

“Because I’m me.” Simple, brutal honesty. Jaime’s favorite weapon. As if anyone could look at her battered, ugly features and want to hold her in the night. 

Jaime growled in frustration. “I can’t decide if I should kiss you or toss you over my shoulder and send you home to your father.”

“Neither,” she scoffed.

“Why not?” Jaime wasn’t amused anymore, he was annoyed. 

Brienne focused on anything but him. The ugly faded curtains on the window, the no smoking sign on the dresser marked with cigarette burns. “You wouldn’t and you couldn’t. And I can’t go home now. Mrs. Stark—” 

“You didn’t fail her, Brienne,” he sighed. She’d fallen completely apart, the night she learned of Catelyn Stark’s death, and Jaime had held her most of the night while she wept. 

“No? Her daughters are still lost.” Runaways were easy prey for so many awful people. Sometimes she couldn’t sleep at night worrying about all the things that could have befallen them. They could be just as dead as Dontos Hollard, but she’d never stop looking until she found them. 

“You didn’t lose them. You’ve damn near broken yourself trying to find them. What more could Catelyn Stark ask?” Jaime sounded so sure, she could almost believe him. 

Brienne exhaled, all the self-recrimination and regret she carried set aside if only for a moment. Wasn’t this what she’d wanted? For Jaime to comfort her? 

Jaime’s hand came up to touch her face, fingertips stroking lightly over the swollen purple skin around her eye, down her cheek, along her jaw until one fingertip ran feather-light over her swollen lip. “Does this hurt?” he asked.

It throbbed in time with her heartbeat, but it didn’t sting anymore. “No,” she assured him. Her eyes fluttered shut, and his hand cupped her cheek. She leaned into his touch, couldn’t help it. How long had it been since anyone touched her like this? Like she mattered? Podrick didn’t count, he hugged everyone. And Hyle’s every move was calculated for his own benefit. 

Jaime tipped her face up, gently, no doubt cataloguing every bruise and scrape so he could berate her for them later. “I never should have let you go,” he murmured.

And then his lips brushed hers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note I've aged everyone up a few years from their canon ages, in large part because it makes zero sense for Brienne to be hired to protect such important people at such a young age. So everyone is a bit older here, including the kids, though the kids are slightly less aged up than the adults, because they still need to be kids.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the rating change.

Brienne startled, but he didn’t pull away and he didn’t try to hold her there. He just waited for her. Would wonders never cease? Jaime Lannister could be patient.

How long since her last kiss? Years. She stretched up to meet him, tasted chocolate on his lips as she returned his kiss, a soft, hesitant peck of her lips. Jaime kissed her back, again and again, deepening each kiss until his tongue was sweeping through her mouth, stroking inside her and making her hot and tingly all over. She could’ve done this all night, hours and hours of nothing but his mouth, until he touched her knee and urged them apart so he could settle between her legs, pressing his body to hers. His hand slid up her thigh, squeezed the smooth muscle there. 

She’d tried so hard for so long to turn off this part of herself, the part that  _ wanted. _ She knew herself well enough to know sex would never quite satisfy with someone like Hyle, someone motivated by greed or pity or even just trying to forget someone else. She didn’t need a man to get off, she was more than capable of doing that herself, without the risks of involving someone else. 

Jaime might as well have his photo in the dictionary under  _ complicated. _ And  _ tempting. _ And the things he was doing with his mouth on her neck were probably illegal in at least five kingdoms. His hand slid under the hem of her shirt, and her heart pounded wildly in her chest, in her ears, between her legs. 

But much as she wanted  _ him, _ she couldn’t do this. Not when his motivation was so painfully clear.  _ I never should have let you go. _ Brienne broke the kiss and pushed him away. She rose until they were standing face to face. “I don’t want your guilt.”

“What are you talking about?” He was flushed, his eyes dark, and he reached for her again, let his hand drop when she flinched back.

“None of this is your fault, Jaime.”  _ You don’t need to offer your body to comfort me. _ She couldn’t bear the humiliation of putting it that baldly, but he’d told her once, when he was feverish and rambling, that Cersei never took comfort in his words or his embrace, only in his bed.

That seemed to sober him quickly. “Why are you being so stubborn? Do you have to be mule-headed about everything?” Jaime made a frustrated noise. “Brienne, if I feel guilty for anything it’s for wanting you so damn badly when you’re bruised and broken and hurting.”

“I’m not broken,” she protested. Maybe a rib or two, but herself, no. It was easier to dispute that than take the rest of it seriously. 

“Then let them go, Brienne,” he continued. “All those bloody voices in your head, talking you out of this. I want you. If you want me too, everyone else can just fuck off.” His lips were wet and red, and a stab of yearning shot through her. Why the hell had she stopped him? 

Letting Jaime touch her, touching him in return, was a terrible idea, least of all because she couldn’t understand why he would want to. She’d been told time and again how undesirable she was, how unfeminine.  _ You should be grateful I’m willing to fuck you. Look at you. _

Brienne took in a shaky breath and willed away the poisoned words, the sneers and cruel laughter. Her hands trembled as she unbuttoned her shirt, not allowing herself to look away from Jaime’s face. His gaze followed her hands until she got about halfway down, then returned to her face. She kept going until all the buttons were undone, and then her hands fell to her sides. 

She couldn’t read his expression. Jaime was staring like he’d never seen her before. This wasn’t a strip tease, she’d feel like a fool even trying something like that, but it was the most brazen she’d ever been. She glanced down, needing a break from his unflinching gaze. Her shirt sagged open, revealing a column of bare skin, the inner slopes of her small breasts, and the bandage binding her ribs. Not the most enticing invitation, but all she had to offer. The bandage didn’t totally cover the bruises, and Jaime reached out and traced one of the livid marks with his fingertips. 

“Damn it, Brienne, you’re killing me here,” he rasped. 

There it was, the guilt she’d feared, as if he’d done all this to her himself. But she’d come too far to stop now. Brienne got up, flicked the lights off, came back to him. “There. Now you don’t have to see it.”  _ Or me.  _

The neon of the motel sign showed through the thin curtains, casting them both in dim red light. The low hum of highway traffic made the outside world seem distant, removed from this room and this moment. 

Jaime’s hands skimmed over worn flannel and slowly peeled away her shirt. His face was lost in shadow, but she could feel his gaze on her face, like the sun hot on her skin. Then his mouth covered hers again, hard and demanding. It hurt but nothing had ever felt so good. 

They kissed until she could taste blood, until each touch stung her wounded lip. He apologized, a sweet murmur against her mouth far more tender than she could take. This wasn’t them. They weren’t soft with each other, they pushed and they fought and they argued. She reached down and unbuttoned his jeans, shoving them roughly down his hips. He reached between them to do the same to her, his right hand clearly clumsier than his left, and for a moment they broke apart to kick off shoes and awkwardly shed their pants. 

Brienne was left in her underwear, black cotton boyshorts with fraying elastic and a few bleach speckles, the unavoidable hazard of doing laundry in random laundromats. Jaime was still wearing his white T-shirt and a pair of boxer-briefs notable only for the way they failed to contain his erection. He really did want her. She itched to touch him, but couldn’t quite decide where to start. 

Jaime reached for her, hands skimming lightly up her belly, over her bandaged ribs, to cup her small breasts. She shivered with the pleasure of it, but she felt exposed, even in the shadows. Brienne grabbed him, one hand in his shirt, the other at his nape, kissed his throat, his beard prickling her sore lip. She pushed him against the edge of the bed, and shoved him back.

Jaime bounced against the mattress, and Brienne scrambled up after him, her thighs around his hips. She leaned over him, rucking up his T-shirt and scoring her blunt nails down his chest until he moaned. A thrill shot through her. He was aroused by this, by her, and she’d never been so turned on before. She felt drunk with it, hot and restless and almost embarrassingly wet. 

Jaime hauled himself up on his elbows and somehow pulled his shirt over his head with one hand. He flopped back, a smug grin on his face. For once she didn’t want to slap it away. All the fighting, the bickering, the push and pull between them on their way to King’s Landing, they could have saved themselves so much trouble if they’d just flipped a coin to see who got to be on top. 

Brienne bent over him, her fine hair trailing over his chest, and tasted him. She let her hands and mouth wander, sucking a bruise on his collarbone, pinching a nipple between her teeth, palming his hard cock through his underwear, cupping the base of his skull in her palm and tugging his hair until he bared his throat to her. He kept talking, her name, praise, once a particularly inventive string of curses that made her laugh. Jaime was entirely at her mercy, willingly, and that was intoxicating. Brienne inhaled him, the strong woodsy scent of his soap, the salt and musk of his skin after a long day. She wanted to devour him. 

His hands moved over her, gentle but firm, holding her hip, skimming under the elastic of her underwear, kneading her breast in his palm. They traded touches, hands and mouths and hot breath, until he surged up and dragged her into his lap, pulling her tight against him. She ground down against him, his erection trapped between them, a dare. How far did he really intend to take this? He’d told Catelyn Stark that he’d only ever been with Cersei. Was that still true? 

He fisted one hand in her hair, tugged gently until she broke away from his mouth. Brienne knew this move, and she swallowed down her own disappointment. He would tug again in a moment, urge her down. Her broad mouth and thick lips weren’t so ugly when they were wrapped around a cock. Or so she’d been told. 

Then his other arm was around her back, and Jaime turned them over so she was lying on the bed. He pulled away only to urge her hips up so he could take off her panties. She hesitated a moment, still surprised not to be on her knees. No one looked at her like Jaime did, drunk on her kiss and greedy for more.

Her panties slipped from her foot, and his hands trailed up her legs, slowly, kneading the flesh under his palms. “I dreamed of this. Of you.” His voice was hoarse. Calloused fingertips played over a scar on her hip, where one of their captors had cut her during an escape attempt. It seemed a thousand years ago and only days past, all at once. 

“Me too,” she whispered, as if there were anyone else to hear this confession. Brienne dreamed of his death far more often than of moments like this. The violence felt more real.

Jaime bent down to press a kiss on her hipbone, his teeth raking her skin, while he pushed his own underwear down his hips and kicked it to the floor. Another kiss, just above her navel, and another, under one breast, his beard prickling her sensitive skin and making her squirm. Another kiss, in the hollow between her collarbones, and then Jaime was nestled in the cradle of her thighs, hard and heavy against her. His hips rocked forward, almost but not quite where she wanted him. His skin was hot where it pressed against her, his mouth hotter still when he kissed her, tenderly, while one hand brushed her hair away from her face. 

“Can we…” he asked, trailing off, his cheeks flushed even in the shadows. 

Now he asked? Now, when any willpower she had was long gone along with her clothes? He must not have come prepared for  _ this. _ She certainly hadn’t. If anyone had told her, even this morning, that she would find herself naked in bed with Jaime Lannister tonight, she would have laughed. 

He was still waiting for an answer, holding himself over her, the muscles of his arms taut with the strain. The only word she could even think was “please,” and she’d sooner die than beg Jaime Lannister to fuck her. So she just nodded and hoped that was enough. 

He didn’t move, just looked at her, and smiled. If he waited longer she  _ would  _ beg, and his smile said he knew it. Then he shifted, leaned down to kiss her, and surged forward until he was buried inside her. 

Brienne stopped breathing. One heartbeat, two, three, passed before she could draw breath. And then she kissed him again, and he started to move.

It was almost painfully intimate, Jaime’s face inches above hers, his arms caging her in, her hands sliding along his sweat-slick back, tracing his ribs and finding the dimples at the base of his spine. She had nowhere to hide from his eyes, from his single-minded pursuit of her pleasure. But it wasn’t romantic, no whispered declarations or compliments, and she was grateful for that. Brienne didn’t want pretty lies about her face or his feelings. Not now. 

She had never been so present in her own skin, even when she was fighting. She felt every inch of skin where they touched and the sheets cool against her back. She could see his pulse beating in his throat and feel her own matching his pace. He filled her, stretched her, stole the breath from her lungs and kissed it back into her. 

Never once did Jaime look away, never once did he close his eyes. When she finally came, he followed right after, her name on his lips. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know commenting on smut can be awkward, but if you can do me a solid and pick a line that worked for you, made you smile, laugh, shiver, whatever, it helps me improve writing I'm not as confident of. Thanks!


	4. Chapter 4

Brienne stretched and grabbed her phone off the nightstand before it could vibrate right off the edge. Her eyes were still bleary with sleep, but even so, she could make out  _ Hyle  _ on the screen well enough. 12:23 a.m. Great.

“Did you find her?” she blurted into the phone, starting to slide out of bed. Her heart was pounding, catapulted from sleep straight to high alert. 

An arm hooked around her waist and dragged her back. Jaime. She’d almost forgotten he was there. His face was pressed against her spine, his beard rubbing between her shoulder blades.

“No, but listen, you’re gonna love this,” Hyle said, too loud and overexcited as he only was with a few old fashioneds in him, and Brienne’s heart sank. “Just talked to an irate baby mama who claims her ex took off with a pretty girl named Alayne. Tall, slim, with long dark hair and blue eyes.”

Brienne tried to focus on the sound of his voice, not the warm, deliciously hard body pressed against her. “Not our girl. And for fuck’s sake, Hyle, stop buying drinks for underage girls.”

“I didn’t, I didn’t. Okay, one, but the kid wasn’t with me,” Hyle admitted. “But listen. Funny thing about Alayne Stone, her eyebrows were red. And there was a box of hair dye in her trash.” 

She could hear the smirk in Hyle’s voice. Hopefully he and Pod had just gone through garbage cans and not actually picked locks to do a bit of breaking and entering. Hyle had done it before. “Okay, could be something,” Brienne conceded, tamping down a flutter of hope in her chest. They’d had leads like this, and none had paid off. “Where’d they go?”

Over the line, she heard a thump, followed by another, and a satisfied groan. Hyle was a predictable man, and the first thing he did upon returning to his room each night was pull off the heavy steel-toed boots that he thought looked bad-ass but mostly seemed to make his feet ache. “Saffron said he likes to play cards at the mountain tribal casinos. Pod and I will head up that way in the morning. Or do you want us to wait for you?”

Jaime shifted behind her and his hand started to stroke up her stomach. Brienne yanked his hand away, and Jaime started chuckling against her back. 

“Is someone else there?” Hyle barked. 

Brienne elbowed Jaime. “Vicious woman,” he grumbled. 

“Fuck, I heard that,” Hyle whined. “Four days, Brienne. Four bloody days I’ve been gone, and you’re already fucking someone else?”

Jaime went worryingly silent behind her. “There’s not a queue, Hyle. We were never going to happen.” How he could ever think that was beyond her. He and his friends had humiliated her. Just because he wasn’t the worst offender didn’t absolve him of that. 

“Right.” Brienne could hear the bitterness in his voice. “I’ll send you the guy’s info. You think you can drive up here tomorrow, or do you need another night pretending your Tinder hookup is Lannister?”

Brienne’s face heated. Hyle was so loud, and Jaime so close, there was no chance he hadn’t heard that. “I’ll be there.” She tossed the phone back on the nightstand and buried her face in her pillow. 

Jaime’s fingertips skimmed lightly up and down her back, making her shiver. “Who's Hyle?” There was a dark intensity to his voice that she recognized. Jaime Lannister looked every inch the pampered blueblood he was, but his voice betrayed the barely-leashed violence inside him, the ruthlessness he employed in the defense of his family. 

“Hyle Hunt. He’s a private investigator.” Jaime didn’t need to know their history. 

“He sounds rather jealous.” Jaime’s voice was teasing, but low and gravelly in a way that made her want him again. 

“Hyle’s never been satisfied with what he’s got. He always wants more.” More money, prettier women, except when it came to her. Brienne was a challenge, even after all these years, and he was still determined to win. 

“So I’m paying this man to follow you around trying to fuck you?” Jaime rolled away from her, settling on his back with a huff of irritation. 

“Now who sounds jealous?” she asked dryly, hearing her own bitterness in her voice. She wouldn’t take back this night, but she wasn’t a fool. She was as much an act of rebellion as his beard.

“Why would I be? I’m just a substitute for your usual Tinder hookup.” If it was supposed to sound like a joke, he’d failed. Jaime sounded surprisingly hurt. 

“I’m not on Tinder,” she grumbled, hoping he’d leave it at that. The mere idea was preposterous. Brienne sat up, gingerly, her ribs still tender, unfamiliar soreness in her thighs and between her legs. Her feet hit the scratchy carpet. “And you’re not paying him. He owes me a favor from our academy days.” 

She’d wobbled to her feet and crossed the few steps to the bathroom door before he replied. “I don’t want you in anyone’s debt because of me.”

She didn’t reply, but his objection was a bit late. Brienne closed the door, peed, then used a damp washcloth between her legs. She brushed her teeth slowly, thoroughly, needing a moment alone.  _ Jaime Lannister _ was in her bed. Jaime Lannister had been  _ inside  _ her.

When she opened the door, she expected to find him dressed and ready to make his escape, but Jaime was still lounging in bed. “Thought you were meeting Daven.” 

“Aunt Genna’s just trying to fix him up with some niece of hers. Daven can fend off one Frey girl without me.”

“You’re ditching him?” She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or alarmed that he seemed in no hurry to leave.

“Brienne, I didn’t stand him up, I called. Besides, Daven’s a big boy. He’ll deal.” Jaime stretched appealingly, the sheets tangled around his legs. 

She should ask what he’d actually told Daven, because she did not want to be the subject of Lannister gossip, but she kept getting distracted by his chest, and his flat stomach, neither chiseled like some unattainable god but toned and strong thanks to his loathing of staying still. The waiting, she knew, had been the worst part of the Secret Service for him, standing in corridors, standing in meetings, primed and ready yet almost never called to action. He was watching her, that knowing smile on his lips, and he was getting hard again. 

Before he could call her out on staring at his cock, Brienne rummaged through her duffel and pulled out an old Storm’s End Thunder T-shirt and boxers. She’d just managed to snake her arms through the sleeves without too much pain when her phone beeped. 

“Hyle?” Jaime asked, picking up her phone and tapping the screen.

Brienne swiped it from his hand and skimmed Hyle’s email. She clucked in dismay at what she found. If Sansa was with this guy, he was bad news. “I’m meeting them in the Vale. Harry Hardyng is 19 and has two baby-mamas. He has money to burn and he likes to gamble.”

Jaime whistled under his breath. “What does she see in him?”

Brienne tapped the attachment and Hardyng’s face filled the screen. Blond, blue-eyed, blandly handsome. She passed the phone to Jaime. 

He snorted. “Ah yes, well, seems Sansa has a type.” 

“Pretty assholes? Seems that way.” Brienne refrained from pointing out that Sansa’s previous boyfriend was Jaime’s nephew. Or son. Either way, a sadistic young man who’d made the world better only when he left it.

Jaime smirked. He’d always had curiously little emotional investment in Joffrey. “I’m sure you can’t relate.” He gestured to her clothes. “Are you happier now with your armor on? ‘Cause I haven’t forgotten what you look like without it.”

“You already knew what I looked like.” She took the phone back, checked her email again to avoid looking at him. Her dad was still radio silent. He barely understood how to use his computer, much less a smartphone, and he’d been over in Essos for months. She loved him, but his sojourns to Lys were something she tried not to think about too hard. 

She could still feel Jaime watching her. The first time they were naked together, she’d broken into an abandoned hunting shack. Jaime had been near delirious with fever and about to collapse. The shack had no telephone, but it had a shower with running water. She’d stripped them both since they had no other clothes, and held him under the cool water while all the secrets of his past poured out of him. 

“It’d be nice to see you sometime without all the bruises. I don’t exactly get off on seeing you roughed up,” Jaime said softly, sitting up in bed. Even back then he’d been distractingly beautiful. It wasn’t a word she often associated with men, but he was. He looked better now, after six months of decent meals and sunshine. The shadows in his eyes had receded, even with all he’d been through in her absence. 

“So it’s the broad shoulders and crooked nose that do it for you?” she said dryly, setting her phone on the nightstand. 

“Yeah, I like your shoulders. And your ass, and your freckles, and your fucking blue eyes.” He said it like it was known, like it wasn’t the craziest thing she’d heard in months. “Come back to bed. I’ll show you again if you’ve already forgotten.” 

She hadn’t forgotten. She still felt strangely aware of where he’d been, sore in a way that was new and impossible to ignore, and her skin felt warm over her mouth, her breasts, and her throat from the friction of his beard. 

He was looking at her like he wanted to do it all over again. And then he looked down at his hands, suddenly bashful. “I know you said we could—without protection, but—”

“It’s fine,” she cut him off. He’d come inside her. That wasn’t wise, not at all, but neither of them had been thinking clearly by then.

Jaime shifted uneasily, his fingers restlessly plucking at the sheets. “Just let me get this out, okay? I got tested. After we got back. Cersei wasn’t … faithful while I was gone, and it wasn’t the first time. I should have told you before, I just … I didn’t want to say her name when I was with you.” He glanced up at her, just for a moment, and it was jarring to see such uncertainty in his eyes. 

This was where she was supposed to tell him she was safe too. She had an IUD, and the doctors had insisted on running a full battery of tests when they returned to King’s Landing, despite her intensely mortifying admission that she was still technically a virgin. At least she had been until tonight. She looked away, pretending to set an alarm on her phone. ”You have nothing to worry about from me.” She took longer than she needed to, putting down the phone, taking advantage of not facing him. 

“I never thought I did,” he said quietly. He sighed as she stood there, unsure what to do next. “Are you coming back to bed? Or do you want me to go?”

Slowly, Brienne climbed back in bed, but she couldn’t take his eyes anymore, staring out of the dark at her. She turned onto her side, away from him. 

The sheets rustled behind her, and then Jaime was tucked against her back, his arm around her waist. He sighed contentedly. “Just like when we were stuck in the woods,” he murmured.

“You’re insane. We were sleeping on the ground. With bugs and snakes and the Seven know what else.” 

Jaime kissed the side of her neck, nuzzling her hair. “Together. Curled up like spoons in a drawer.” His hand slipped under the hem of her shirt to rest against her stomach. 

Brienne snorted indelicately. “You were the little spoon.” He’d complained about the cold nights relentlessly, and part of the time he’d been shaking with fever and she was terrified he would die before they could find help. They were hardly romantic evenings. The occasional mornings she woke up tangled in his arms, his cock hard against her, were confusing and embarrassing.

“If I was the little spoon, I couldn’t do this.” His hand slid up to cup her breast. 

Sleep was a long time in coming, but neither of them minded.


	5. Chapter 5

She wasn’t surprised to wake up alone, morning sun filtering through the curtains. There was no sign Jaime had ever been there, and if not for a snarky text from Hyle, she might have convinced herself it was all an exceptionally vivid dream. 

_ Never thought you’d blow off a lead to blow a guy.  _

Hyle never was one for subtlety. Or tact, for that matter. He was wrong, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. Brienne ignored him and left her phone on the nightstand. All of her muscles complained when she rolled slowly out of bed, away from the sheets that still smelled like Jaime and like them, and stumbled over to the bathroom.

She stood beneath the hot water until it started to cool, letting the heat soak into her muscles. Her bruises were slightly less dark than yesterday, yellowing under the deep purple. At least her ribs hurt less when she breathed deeply or lifted her arms to wash her hair. Jaime had not been gentle so much as careful with her, holding his weight away from her cracked ribs, avoiding her bruises when he touched her. 

He had marked her, though. Nothing she couldn’t hide, thankfully. She could just imagine the things Hyle would say if she showed up in the Vale with a hickey on her neck. He wouldn’t see the bruise high on her inner thigh, where Jaime had lingered mostly to torture her while his fingers worked their magic inside her and she grew lightheaded from embarrassment and frustrated pleasure. He’d made it up to her, first with his mouth and then urging her up to ride him. 

She hadn’t truly enjoyed being on top at first, too much on display for her comfort, but the control it gave her slowly overcame her embarrassment. And the look on his face … that almost starstruck expression while Jaime touched her, she had never thought to have a man look at her like that. His hands had not stopped moving, teasing her breasts, holding her ass and her thighs to guide her rhythm, and finally fingers dancing in the slickness between them to bring her over the edge, shaking and crying out and collapsing atop him dizzy and boneless while he pulsed inside her.

None of that mattered, though, because he was gone. On his way to Riverrun by now, to help his cousin seduce a Frey girl or to avoid becoming entangled with her, Brienne wasn’t clear which. She’d met a few Freys. Chinless, with a distinct ferrety look, from what she remembered from her time with Catelyn Stark. Regardless, soon enough Jaime would be back in King’s Landing, back in his sister’s orbit. 

Had he come here planning to get his revenge on Cersei? To even the score by fucking someone else, if not her than someone in Riverrun? It hadn’t felt like revenge, the way he held her after, both times. Three times? First after dinner, then again after Hyle called, and maybe again around dawn. She’d either been dreaming or still half-asleep when he took her slowly from behind as they lay spooned together, his hands wandering over her skin while the first birds started chirping outside. 

No, not revenge. Who cuddled after a revenge fuck? 

Brienne turned off the water and swiped a hand over the foggy mirror. If she turned just right… there was a bruise on the back of her shoulder, from his mouth. Definitely not a dream, then. 

She briskly towel-dried her body, avoiding her bruises as best she could, swiped antibiotic cream over her bite and wrapped a new gauze bandage over it. The towels were pitifully small, and barely wrapped around her. 

She opened the door, letting a cloud of steam escape into the room. Light streamed in through the open curtain.

And Jaime was sitting at the small table, a paper cup of coffee in his hand. A slow smile crept across his face while her heart pounded uncomfortably in her chest. “If you’d stayed in there much longer I’d have joined you. Is there  _ any  _ hot water left?”

“No,” she said tersely, and hurried awkwardly over to her bag, trying desperately to keep the towel from breaking loose and leaving her completely exposed in front of the window. 

Now she noticed the second cup on the table, and a paper bag that hopefully contained food. An unfamiliar leather bag rested by the door, which explained how he was wearing fresh clothes. Jeans and a green henley that brought out his eyes and lovingly clung to every muscle of his chest and arms. 

Jaime’s smile slipped away. “Good thing I showered earlier, then. You were still out cold, so I went to get coffee and food. Not a lot of choice around here. I would’ve gotten donuts but the selection was shit. You like muffins, right?” 

She nodded, like this was just an ordinary conversation. Maybe it was. While it hurt when she thought he left without saying good-bye, now it was just  _ awkward _ . Would it be more or less weird if they didn’t talk about it? The bed was still a wreck, the coverlet shoved to the floor and sheets a tangled mess. 

Brienne crouched in front of her duffel bag, fingers locked in a death grip on the towel, cold water dripping down her spine as she hunted for clean clothes. Where the hell were her underwear? And socks, she’d need socks. Yesterday’s jeans would be fine, they were somewhere around here. Nevermind, she had another pair, and there had to be a clean T-shirt in here.

“There’s a double chocolate and a blueberry. You can have first pick.” The paper crinkled as he rummaged in the bag. 

She finally found something with a sleeve, and dragged the whole pile of clothes against her chest. “Whichever,” Brienne answered, getting to her feet and turning her back on him. As quickly as she could, she dressed, wiggling into her underwear under the towel before dropping it. 

“If you want something else, we could just go down to the restaurant, but I thought you’d want to get going.” 

Jaime sounded so eager to please it was jarring, but she couldn’t answer him, couldn’t reassure him. Not yet. She bent over to struggle into her jeans, wincing when her ribs protested.

Suddenly Jaime’s hands were on her sides, steadying her. Brienne wrestled the denim up her damp thighs and straightened. He didn’t release her, instead gently pulling her back against him. She let him, resting against his chest. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.” She was fine. She could hold it together until he left, and then she could figure out how to shove all these feelings back in their box, where she wouldn’t have to think about them. 

“Right. I got that from the one-word answers and lack of eye contact.” His chin rested on her shoulder. 

She sagged against him, strangely relieved by the bite of his sarcasm. His hands slid forward to rest on her bare stomach. They were warm, a little calloused, and they made her shiver. “Can I put my shirt on?” It was lying on the bed in front of her, just out of reach. 

“In a minute,” he agreed. “If you’re not going to talk, I will.”

“Okay.” At least he was behind her. She wouldn’t have to look at him.

“You thought I left.” It wasn’t a question, and she didn’t deny it. “I’m an asshole, but I’m not  _ that  _ asshole. I wouldn’t just leave.” 

“You’re not an asshole.” Brienne had called him that a hundred times, more probably, between Riverrun and King’s Landing. Now, she couldn’t even let someone else say it without getting defensive on his behalf.

Jaime chuckled, the sound rumbling through her. “Yeah, I am. Even to you. It’s like breathing. Wake up, say something shitty, hurt someone who doesn’t deserve it. It’s the Lannister way.”

“Stop that,” she chided, but it was true. Even the Lannisters she liked had a sharpness that could be hard to take. Except the kids. Tommen and Myrcella were lovely, raised mostly by nannies while Cersei devoted all her attention to Joffrey. 

“You thought I left,” he reminded her. “Fucked you all night, then snuck out of bed and took off while you were sleeping. That’s a classic asshole move.”

“You could have left a note.” Not that she’d looked for one.

Jaime sighed and lifted his scarred right hand from her stomach. “Brienne, I told you I can’t hold a pen anymore. I’m learning to write with my left, but it’s worse than chicken scratch.”

Brienne took his hand in hers and put it back on her skin. “I’m sorry.”

“For what? Believing the worst of me?” Jaime didn’t even sound bitter about it, and he didn’t even know she thought he might be getting back at Cersei. That was much worse than running off without saying goodbye.

“It’s not you, I swear. It’s me.” She heard how trite the words were even as they left her mouth, but couldn’t stop them. It  _ was  _ her, her insecurities, her inability to lower her defenses and let anyone in who might hurt her. She couldn’t change the habits of a lifetime in a single night. 

Jaime started laughing. “Really?” The sarcasm was back again. “You’re going with that.” He started to pull away, and Brienne grabbed his hands to hold him in place.

Now she was really glad he couldn’t see her. She could feel her skin heating, knew she was blushing, red and blotchy and hideous. “The first guy I fooled around with. He left while I was sleeping. Took my panties with him. I heard later that he’d won a bet with the other first-years, and when I confronted him he said I should have let him fuck me because no one else would want to.” The most embarrassing moment of her life, and she was reminded of it every day for years, every time she saw one of her asshole classmates. 

Jaime growled, and then he rubbed his bearded cheek against her shoulder. “That is not what I thought you were going to say. And I’m gonna need names.”

“No. I beat every last one of them in training.” She relished those memories, Hyle’s blood on her knuckles, Ben Bushy’s broken nose, Ed Ambrose’s purple face and hands clutched over his tiny dick after she kicked him in a training bout. “What did you think I was going to say?”

His lips pressed to her bare skin, warm and sweet. “I thought you got what you wanted and didn’t want me around anymore. But you’d be real nice about it, let me down easy.”

“What I wanted?” The penny dropped. “You knew I was a virgin.”

“I wondered,” Jaime admitted. 

“Because of how I look.” Big, unfeminine, ugly Brienne. She’d been hearing it all her life. As a child, women were the ones who tutted about her “unfortunate” looks. As an adult, men heaped scorn on her at every opportunity, and women mostly ignored her. She was almost used to it by now. Almost.

“Uh, no.” His hand caressed her belly, fingertips ghosting along the waistband of her jeans. She could feel his smirk. “Because you were really tight. And the look on your face when I went down on you.”

Brienne flushed even hotter, remembering his mouth, and the sinful things he’d done. “I’ve fooled around some, it was just kind of underwhelming,” she mumbled. Awkward, sweaty, teeth clashing, hands too rough. And she’d never trusted any of them enough to let them inside her.

Jaime’s teeth nibbled her shoulder. “I better not be included in that. I was outstanding.”

“Not gonna stroke your ego, Jaime, or anything else.” He started chuckling, and she took the opportunity to pull gently out of his grasp, grabbing her T-shirt and slowly pulling it on over her head. She’d left off the bandages around her ribs, and was beginning to regret it. 

Jaime settled back into his chair, sipping his coffee. “Where do you want to stop tonight?”

Brienne went back into the bathroom and returned with her toiletry case. “Not stopping. I can reach the Vale by midnight or so.” She tossed it in her bag and gathered up her dirty clothes strewn around the floor. If they had a real lead, she didn’t trust Hyle not to cock things up. He could be abrasive, just like Jaime only with far less charm. 

“Why? This kid you’re chasing will still be there whether you get there at midnight or noon tomorrow.” He was right, she knew that was a logical response, but she couldn’t be logical about this.

“That’s another night Sansa spends with this kid.” Brienne shoved the last of her things in her bag and zipped it up. 

Jaime picked up her coffee and held it out to her. She took it gratefully. “They’ve been together for at least a few days already. One more night’s not going to make any difference, except that you might scare Sansa into running if you come banging on her door in the middle of the night.”

Brienne sank into the other chair and sipped her coffee. A hint of sugar, plenty of cream, just the way she liked it. He smiled when he saw her drinking it. They’d never gone out for coffee, so how did he … They’d been sitting on a stretch of riverbank, Jaime bitching about his wet shoes, and Brienne squeezing brackish water from her hair after slipping in the shallows. And somehow they’d ended up talking about the first thing they would do when they reached civilization. Brienne had been certain he would disgust her with his desire to return directly to his sister’s bed, but instead he’d described in mouthwatering detail the coffee he wanted and how it would taste and smell, then coaxed her to describe her usual order, with significantly fewer details. Jaime had made coffee sound like a religious experience. He was good at that, painting a picture with his words. That was right before Jaime got so sick she’d thought he might die, when he’d stopped talking and she’d desperately missed his endless, irritating chatter. 

“Thank you,” she said, gesturing with the cup. 

He sipped his own, the pleased little smile lingering on his lips. Did he still appreciate small pleasures as he had when first released from Riverrun? Or had he grown jaded again in the capital, wrapped in the endless luxury and privilege afforded by his name? 

“Let your PI friend look for Sansa one more night,” Jaime suggested, pulling the muffins out of the bag and setting both before her. “I know a place where you can get that bite looked at and they won’t talk to the cops. We can be there this afternoon, then we’ll head up to that casino you mentioned tomorrow morning.”

Brienne’s mouth dropped open in shock. She must look like a fish. “You want to come with me?”

“Well, if I don’t go with you I’m not sure how I’ll get home. Do they even have Uber out here?” Jaime somehow managed to sound both amused and annoyed. “Yes, Brienne, I want to come with you.”

Brienne pushed the chocolate muffin in his direction. “You have a rental car.”

He shrugged and started picking bits off the muffin and nibbling them along with his coffee. “I had the company pick it up.”

“Why?” She looked down at her muffin, carefully peeling away the wrapper so she wouldn’t have to look at him while he answered. 

“Brienne.” She expected him to continue, but he didn’t. Jaime seemed to think her name was answer enough. 

Blueberry smeared her thumb, and she licked it away as she glanced up. “I know it’s bad right now for your family. I can’t ask you to stay away from them.”

“You didn’t ask. I offered.” He was watching her, and the way the light hit him was unfair. His hair was darkening as he aged, but the sun picked up the gold and silver and made both shine. But she couldn’t let that distract her. Jaime had always been attractive. That was no reason to let him start calling the shots in her search.

“No, you decided to stay without asking me first. I’m not so sure it’s a good idea.” A tempting idea, sure, especially if Jaime intended to share her bed as long as he was with them. But would Sansa come with her if Jaime was there when they found her?

“So my money is welcome, just not me?” Jaime snapped. He sighed. “I’m sorry. I am. I’m just tired of having every effort to help thrown back in my face.”

Brienne reached out and gently squeezed his scarred hand across the table. “I’m sorry, too. I see the news now and then, I do have some idea what’s been going on. That was a big part of why I didn’t try to contact you. I figured you didn’t need another person complaining to you.” Between Tyrion’s escape, Tywin Lannister’s sudden death (the details suspiciously kept quiet), and his sister’s recent arrest, Jaime had his own troubles to deal with. He didn’t need hers too. 

“I would have loved to hear your voice, even if I couldn’t see you scowling in disapproval at everything I said and did,” he admitted, covering her hand with his left.

Brienne winced. “I didn’t disapprove of  _ everything  _ you did.”

Jaime pulled his hands away, laughing. “Oh yes, you did. I remember it quite well. Idiot, you should’ve just given them the keys and kept your mouth shut. Lannister, stop squirming while I set your bones. Jaime, don’t scream at the bear.”

“You make me sound like a horrible nag,” she protested. “I just wanted to get you to King’s Landing in one piece! And besides, I was right about the bear.” 

“Well, how was I supposed to know you can’t scare away a bear like that?” he countered. She had never seen something quite so stupid. They’d woken to find a bear not fifty feet away, nosing at some blackberry brambles. Jaime had wanted to scare it off, despite the fact that it was at least three times their size with truly terrifying teeth and claws. She’d just barely gotten her hand over his mouth before he’d tried to scream at it. 

She laughed. “Because I told you?” 

He grinned. “See? I missed this.”

“You’re insane.” She’d heard him tell the story of the bear several times, and every time he somehow took credit for scaring it off, even though it had been a branch falling from a tree that spooked the animal and sent it wandering off while they backed slowly away, trying not to look threatening. 

He was ridiculous and impulsive and the more time she spent with him the more impulsive she became, because she wanted to get up and drag him back to bed. But no, she needed to get on the road, and she wasn’t convinced that Jaime wasn’t trying to avoid his family’s troubles in King’s Landing by offering to come with her. 

Brienne turned her attention to their breakfast. She wasn’t really hungry, but she picked up the muffin anyway. It was sweet and a little buttery, berries bursting on her tongue and coarse sugar crunching between her teeth. She moaned softly at the taste, and noticed the way Jaime’s eyes darkened. His gaze was stuck on her mouth. 

“We don’t have to leave right away,” he suggested, tossing another chunk of muffin in his mouth. 

She shook her head. Still not a good idea. “You’re a terrible influence. I should have been on the road hours ago.” 

“I could make it worth your while.” Oh, that wasn’t fair. His voice was nearly a growl, low and dark with promises she now knew very well he could keep. 

“I’ll have to take a raincheck on that,” Brienne answered with confidence she didn’t feel. Leaving this place would break the spell, and if it didn’t, his return to King’s Landing certainly would. “Jaime, what about…” She still couldn’t say his sister’s name. It was ridiculous.

Jaime sighed. “There’s a shitstorm brewing in King’s Landing, all of it her making. Kevan’s there, but I can’t stay away forever. The kids will need me. But for now...”

“For now?” She sipped her coffee, trying to seem nonchalant and likely failing. 

“For now, I’m yours to command.” Jaime tossed the last of his muffin in his mouth and chased it with coffee. 

“Don’t tempt me,” she muttered. “What happens when you have to go home? Some big black helicopter drops out of the sky and whisks you away?”

He laughed. “Please, it would be red, and my uncle would call at least twice before resorting to collecting me like an errant child.” He leaned over and kissed her quickly but thoroughly. “Now come on. If you need some time to recover from my mighty sword, let’s get on the road, before I start getting creative.”

“Your mighty—” Brienne sputtered. “Gods, you’re impossible.”

Jaime’s smile turned sharp and hungry. “Yours to command, Brienne. Just keep that in mind.”

Her whole body heated at the intensity in his voice. She would never get used to that, if this lasted a hundred years. Which it wouldn’t. She had to keep reminding herself of that.

They were back on the highway half an hour later, Brienne driving since Jaime couldn’t handle a stick shift very well. An hour after that, she noticed the blue truck was three cars behind them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the chapter count went up. These two dummies were supposed to drive off into the Riverlands together and that would be that. But they insisted on continuing.


	6. Chapter 6

Jaime could not sing, and he quite clearly did not care. “Come on, Tarth, just crank it up and sing along,” he pleaded, fiddling with the radio’s volume knob until the bass was thrumming through the entire car and Brienne was certain her ears would be ringing for a week. At least it drowned out his attempts at falsetto. 

By the time they walked into the Kneeling Man for lunch, Brienne was eager to stretch her legs and get a few moments of quiet. She swiftly realized the crowded pub was far too loud to provide the latter and told Jaime to grab them a table while she made a quick call.

She stood behind a tree near the parking lot and dialed Hyle, watching the roadway. Sure enough, the blue truck pulled in and parked just as Hyle picked up. No one got out, but the sun reflecting off the windshield made it impossible to see who was inside.

“Where are you?” Hyle asked tersely.

“The River Road. I’m not going to make it up to the Vale today.” She wasn’t in the mood to baby Hyle. 

“Why not? This is a good tip, Brienne. We’ve already ruled out one casino, and we’re on our way to the next. Pod being utterly forgettable is working in our favor.” He sounded even more irritable than last night. Was he going to hold a grudge forever? Brienne had never really encouraged his advances, even back at the academy.

No one had gotten out of the truck, but she couldn’t tell if they’d spotted her or if they were just waiting for someone, or making a call. The highway patrol had really been cracking down on cellphone use over the last year or so because it was easy money for these little po-dunk towns. 

“I think I’m being followed,” she admitted. 

Hyle muttered a series of exceptionally blasphemous curses. “I knew it was a bad idea to split up.” He blew out a heavy breath. “Where are you? Can you hunker down in a hotel? Somewhere better than the crapholes you always put us in? We can be there tomorrow.”

“No, no, I’m fine,” she assured him. “It’s a blue Smith truck, Riverlands plates 634BES. If you want to help you could reach out to one of your creepy friends and see if they can run the plate for me.”

“My friends are not creepy,” he whined.

“Mark Mullendore,” Brienne countered. It wasn’t his amputated arm that was creepy. It was the way he frequented chat rooms for people with an amputee fetish and offered his services whenever he wanted to get laid. 

“Fine. Whatever,” he conceded. “You still shouldn’t be alone. I don’t know why you won’t just carry a gun.” 

“Because then I might shoot someone.” This was an old argument. Brienne didn’t want Podrick anywhere near a gun. It was too easy to make a mistake you couldn’t take back. “And I’m not alone.” 

Hyle was worryingly quiet for a long time. She could hear the noise and chatter of the casino floor, slot machines and roulette wheels and people laughing. “Same guy who was in your bed last night?” His voice was like ice.

Much as she wanted to tell him this was none of his business, Hyle was part of her team. “Hyle, I’m with Jaime.”

He laughed. “Jaime fucking Lannister? Sure you are. Pull the other leg, Brienne.” 

Her face burned. Of course he thought she was joking. “I’ll call you tomorrow when I have a better idea of our ETA. Let me know if your contacts turn up anything on the truck. Okay?”

“Of course. But if I see Sansa, what do you want me to do?” He sounded distracted, likely ogling a cocktail waitress. 

“Watch. Don’t engage. If she runs, we might not find her again.” Brienne made her voice as stern as possible. Hyle had a habit of going rogue and apologizing later. His plans rarely worked, which was how he’d even been available to join her and Pod. He’d pissed off his asshole captain, Randyll Tarly, one too many times and was strongly urged to resign from the Maidenpool PD.

“You’re the boss,” Hyle said, and hung up. He hadn’t meant that, not one bit. It was intended to be a dig against her, and Brienne was exhausted with his fragile ego.

The blue truck pulled out of its parking space and left the lot in the direction of the eastbound River Road, without getting close enough for Brienne to see the driver. At least it was gone. She was getting paranoid, out on the road so long. 

Inside the pub she found Jaime in a booth near the doors. She was just about to tell him about her chat with Hyle when their waitress came up to the booth. She set Jaime’s soda down so hard it sloshed out of the glass, and didn’t even apologize before turning to Brienne. 

“Can I help you, hon?” she asked, handing Brienne a menu and pointedly ignoring Jaime trying to mop up the spill with some paper napkins. 

Brienne had never seen a woman react to Jaime that way, and for a moment she was too flustered to speak. “Um, iced tea, unsweet if you have it. Thanks.”

The waitress seemed disappointed by that, but she nodded and walked away.

“What was that about?” Brienne asked. “What did you say to her?”

Jaime finished cleaning up the mess and shoved the napkins to one side of the table. “I asked for two menus and ordered a soda. She was sweet as pie a minute ago, I swear.” He glanced up at Brienne and frowned. “Must’ve been your face.”

Brienne’s face heated and she hunched her shoulders. No matter how futile she knew it was, the instinct to make herself smaller kicked in every time. “Oh, right. What’re you doing with someone who looks like me.”

Jaime’s brow furrowed and he leaned forward. “Brienne. No. This.” He reached up to touch just beside her eye. “She thinks I hit you.”

A laugh burst out of her. She’d forgotten what her face looked like, in all the awkwardness of this morning. The swelling had gone down, but her skin was still mottled purple and slightly green. Most women would have tried to cover it, but she didn’t own any makeup suited to the task. “Are you kidding?” 

Jaime shook his head. “No. Seriously, she was flirting with me. You show up, and she practically spills a drink on me.”

She huffed a soft laugh. “As if you would ever hurt me.”

Jaime’s eyes widened, but then he smiled, shy and pleased all at once. “Careful, Tarth. I might think you trust me.”

“I do trust you.” The words felt heavy in the aftermath of last night. He might still hurt her, it was nearly inevitable, but the thought of Jaime raising his hand to her in anger no longer concerned her. It had once, long ago, but not for a long time now. 

His head tipped to the side, eyeing her contemplatively. He bit his lip, and somehow went from rather adorable to brutally hot. “You have no idea how much I wish I was taking you somewhere else tonight.”

“Why?” Brienne picked up a menu, avoiding his heated gaze. After last night, she barely knew how to react to him in private, much less in public. 

He sipped his drink. “It’s a monastery. Unmarried couples can’t sleep in the same cabin. In fact the women’s cabins are on the opposite side of the island from the men’s.”

Brienne’s mind snagged on  _ couple _ but she couldn’t make herself ask if that was what they were. It seemed presumptuous (not to mention ridiculous) after one night. 

And then the waitress came back to their table, carefully setting Brienne’s tea in front of her. “You sure you don’t need help, hon?” the girl asked again. 

Now that she understood the question, Brienne noticed that the girl had a few missing teeth and small burn scars on her arm. Pia, her name tag said. Pia was no stranger to violence. Brienne smiled up at her reassuringly. “It looks bad, doesn’t it? I’d say the other guy looks worse, but he was pretty ugly to start with.” 

Under the table, Jaime’s foot touched hers. He understood what she was doing.

Pia blushed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. We get runaways in here sometimes too scared to ask for help.”

Brienne opened her bag and pulled out a photo. “Well, I’m a bit old to be running away, but I’m actually looking for these girls. Promised their mom I’d bring them home. Have you seen them?” 

Pia actually took the photo of the Stark girls to look at it. A promising sign. Most people just glanced at it and were already shaking their heads before they even had a good look at it. She squinted at it and frowned. “The younger one maybe, months ago near Harrenhal. The older one I definitely haven’t seen.” She handed back the photo. “Can I get you two something to eat?”

“Thank you.” Brienne tucked the photo back in her bag. “You order first,” she urged Jaime as she picked up the menu again. 

Jaime was right. Now that the waitress knew he wasn’t abusive, she smiled without showing her teeth and touched his arm as she talked to him. Subtle flirting, the signals Brienne recognized but never used herself. That delicate, teasing touch looked right with slim fingers and shiny pink polish, not with Brienne’s large, rough hands. She never wore rings for the same reason. 

She focused resolutely on the menu. No point in watching them. Bad enough hearing it. Jealousy was pointless. Her eyes flicked over the menu, restless. She certainly wasn’t one of those women who seemed to exist on salad and diet soda, but did everything have to be fried? 

When Jaime was done ordering enough food to feed an army, he turned to Brienne. “You can have some of my fries, sweetling, but the pretzel bites are mine.”

Brienne’s gaze snapped up to meet his. She was so surprised it took her a moment to look away from his lopsided smile and back down at her menu. The text was swimming and her cheeks were scalding. She fixed on the first thing she saw. “Um, I’ll take the lamb pasties. Thanks.” 

She passed the menu back to Pia without looking at her, and waited to look up until the girl had gone. “Sweetling?” she asked, caught between irritation and confusion.

Jaime shrugged, still smiling at her. “Darling? My lady? Wench?” 

She glowered at him. “You don’t have to lay it on so thick, Jaime. I know I’m no queen of love and beauty.”

“But you are my maiden fair,” he countered, and started humming “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” under his breath. 

Her cheeks flamed. After their encounter with the bear, he’d whistled that old folk song for days, mumbling occasional lyrics to embarrass her. Last night, he’d hummed against her as his tongue drove her crazy. Later, his head pillowed on her chest and his beard still wet from his worship between her thighs, she’d asked what he was doing. He’d started humming again, and then, low and gravelly, he’d reminded her of the lyrics.  _ She kicked and wailed, that maid so fair, but he licked the honey from her hair.  _

Brienne was neither maiden nor fair, and she didn’t want or need the lie, but he was smiling, and teasing her, and she didn’t want to rock the boat. Whatever this was between them felt fragile as a soap bubble, bound to pop but beautiful while it lasted. 

They were sharing a slice of apple pie with ice cream when her phone beeped with a text from Hyle. 

_ Truck registered to Gendry Waters, 113-B Steel Street, King’s Landing. Petty juvenile record, no red flags. _

That was a relief. By late afternoon, she still hadn’t spotted the truck again, and Brienne began to relax. They stopped for an early dinner at the Inn at the Crossroads, this time Jaime was the one who waited outside to call ahead to the monastery. They would arrive after dark and needed a boat to meet them on the shore near Saltpans. 

When their waitress, whose breasts seemed moments away from escaping her leather corset, leaned in give Jaime a better view of their jiggling bounty, Brienne summoned all her courage and took his hand across the table. Jaime’s grateful smile made her cheeks warm, and the waitress stalked off as soon as they’d ordered. 

It was strange to be with him around other people. They’d been so often alone, except when they were captives, and even then they’d been largely ignored. In this crowded pub, music blaring, people talking and laughing around them, Brienne had to focus on him intently to hear him. After frustratedly asking her to repeat herself for the fourth time, Jaime got up and moved to her side of the booth, draping his arm along the top of the bench behind her. 

For a few minutes she couldn’t relax, his thigh pressed firmly against hers, his eyes bright and far too close. But her nervous arousal faded as the pint of mead they were sharing slowly soothed her nerves and loosened her tongue. Jaime didn’t want to talk much about his family’s troubles, not in public and not right now, but he showed her some pictures of the kids, and talked about Myrcella’s incipient teenage rebellion and Tommen’s penchant for adopting stray kittens. She told him about the day Pod accidentally locked the keys inside the Shadowcat, and how horrified he was the first time he landed a punch to her face in training. 

Jaime asked about Hyle just as their meals were delivered. He struggled for a moment trying to apply enough pressure to the knife with his right hand before Brienne pulled his plate to her and stole a bit of his steak before slicing the rest for him, as if she did it all the time, distracting him with the barest bones of her history with Hyle. She left out the fight at the Whispers, left out Hyle’s attempt at winning the bet, and how he’d told her that all women look the same in the dark. She still thought about that, and hated that he’d gotten inside her head that way. 

By the time they left the Crossroads, Brienne was feeling less jumpy, less conflicted. She could do this, enjoy her time with Jaime while still looking for Sansa. And he was right, a few hours’ delay wouldn’t change Sansa’s situation, but it might make Brienne stronger and better able to protect her. Not that she would tell him that. Better to let Jaime think he was dragging her to this monastery and its prudish healing monks. 

The road along the Trident to Maidenpool was narrow and winding. The setting sun darted in and out of sight between the trees crowding up to the banks of the river. Fallen leaves in gold and orange and crimson swirled across the pavement as they passed. Normally Brienne was a very conscientious driver. Hyle was forever giving her directions like “turn left at the barn with the trout mural on it” and she would miss it because she kept her eyes on the road. But after a full day of driving and a heavy dinner, she was tired and more than a little distracted by Jaime’s profile beside her lit in the flattering tones of the golden hour, as if he needed any help looking gorgeous. 

Otherwise she would have noticed the primer gray van behind them sooner, hanging back an oddly steady distance. And she would have seen the truck ahead, blocking the road, before she had to slam on the Shadowcat’s brakes, throwing both of them against their seatbelts and knocking her breath from her lungs. 

The van caught up swiftly and turned to block the road behind them. 

“That van’s been following us since lunch,” Jaime said grimly. 

“The truck followed me from Hollow Hill,” she countered. “I thought he’d gone away after the Kneeling Man.”

Jaime scowled at her. “Fuck. Would it have killed you to tell me that?”

“You didn’t tell me either,” Brienne huffed. She regretted that now, but Jaime would have gone defaulted to his training and changed all their plans to evade what she'd thought was unlikely to pose a real threat. Plenty of vehicles traveled the River Road. Seeing the same truck a few times wasn't necessarily suspicious. 

The truck’s doors opened and two men climbed out, one young with jet black hair and the other older and grey. Brienne recognized them immediately. She desperately wished she didn’t. “Jaime, that’s the bartender at the Brotherhood bar. And the other guy is—”

“The Blackfish. Brynden Tully.” 


	7. Chapter 7

Brynden Tully was dead. Everyone knew that. He was part of the motorcade crossing the bridge at the Twins the night the Freys ambushed and killed Catelyn and her son Robb. She couldn’t imagine how he’d escaped, or where he’d been hiding for more than six months. Or why the bartender that saved her days ago was here with him. 

Doors slammed behind them. 

Jaime turned awkwardly in his seat. He barked a humorless laugh. “And that’s Thoros Myr. Crazy bastard. Fought with him on Pyke.” He sighed heavily. “We might as well get out, before they drag us out.”

Brienne tried to breathe through her nerves, calling up her training.  _ Stay calm, watch what you say, make no sudden moves. _ They had no idea if Catelyn’s uncle was armed or why he’d trapped them here on a lonely stretch of road. 

Jaime was first out of the car, sauntering up to the hood and resting against it. “Blackfish, I heard you were dead.”

Tully looked at Jaime liked he’d stepped in something foul. “And I heard you’d lost a hand. Pity we were both wrong.” 

Brienne made her way around the side of the car, wishing for once that she’d listened to Hyle. A pistol would make her feel rather better right now. Being ambushed beside swift running water headed for the Narrow Sea seemed ominous as hell. She and Jaime could disappear in less than five minutes, never to be heard from again. “Could you shut up for once?” she muttered. 

“We’ve met before. He’s not a fan of mine,” Jaime answered between clenched teeth. 

“Miss Tarth.” Tully gave her a quick nod of acknowledgement. He looked far from dead, a bit shabbier than when she’d last seen him, jeans and flannel and work boots instead of a dark suit, but the sharp way he regarded her was the same. As he talked, he walked closer to them, the bartender following behind. The younger man looked more imposing when she wasn’t comparing him to the bikers. His shoulders were broad, his arms heavily muscled, and his eyes were strangely familiar. A vibrant blue. 

The Blackfish stopped no more than ten feet away. “Toss me your keys. You two will ride in the van.”

“No,” Jaime snapped. “Let me rephrase that. Hell, no. Fuck, no. Either works, because I’m not going anywhere with you, and neither is Brienne.”

The Blackfish pulled his hand from his pocket, and he was holding a sleek Blackmont pistol. At this range, Brienne didn’t fancy their chances of evading a shot. “Oh, you’re coming with us. Or you’re going in the river right now. I must confess, I don’t have a preference. Might be easier to just end this now.” 

“Why? I’ve been looking for your nieces for months, while you let everyone think you were dead,” Brienne protested. It wasn’t fair, all the weeks driving across Westeros, the nights in smoky bars, the pain and the worry and it was worth less than nothing to this man, in fact it counted against her.

Tully regarded her coldly. “I must confess, when Gendry here told me a tall blonde woman was flashing my nieces’ photos all over the Trident, I wondered if it was you. When he told me you took on a bar full of bikers when you should have run, I knew it was you. The vulgar car threw me off. Cat certainly didn’t pay you that well. And then I saw Jaime Lannister going into your motel room.” 

Brienne flushed guiltily. There was a huge difference between knowing Catelyn wouldn’t approve and facing Brynden’s scorn. 

Jaime growled. “Brienne has been—”

Brynden held up a hand. “Let the woman speak for herself, if she can. Because the way I see it, she sold out Cat for a fancy car and a pretty man. I don’t want her anywhere near my nieces.” 

Brienne’s flush deepened, her heart thudding uncomfortably in her chest, but guilt wasn’t at all part of it. Yes, she’d taken the car. Yes, she’d fucked Jaime. But not at the price of her honor. “I failed Mrs. Stark. I know that. I should have gotten to King’s Landing before the girls disappeared. I’ve been all over the Crownlands and the Riverlands looking for them.” 

Her fury abated, and she looked at the swiftly rushing water, blinking away tears. It would be cold at this time of year, and the current was wicked, curling around submerged rocks and ancient tree limbs rotting beneath the surface. She would drown long before she reached the sea. She let herself glance at Jaime. He wasn’t even looking at her, though he was standing slightly in front of her, as if he could protect her if the Blackfish did anything to them. “Jaime has done nothing but help me. He gave me the car, yes, and money so I could keep looking as long as I needed to.”

The Blackfish laughed. “Cat said you were a sucker for a pretty face, but I had no idea. Girl, what do you think Lannister will do when you find those girls? Sansa will inherit Winterfell when she turns 18. She’s worth far more than that silly car, far more than a few hours fumbling with you in the dark.”

“Is that why you want her?” Jaime asked, cold as the water, colder than she’d heard him since they were enemies. “Why even bother with Arya? That one won’t listen to a damn thing you say.” 

“Don’t even speak Arya’s name,” Gendry snarled.

Jaime barked a surprised laugh. “Touchy, boy. Isn’t she a bit young for you?” 

Gendry surged forward and the Blackfish held him back. “Don’t you worry about Arya, Lannister. She’s perfectly safe.” 

“With you? Do you have Sansa too?” She wouldn’t even lament all these months of fruitless searching if both girls were safe and with family. 

The Blackfish shook his head. “No, just Arya.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Brienne asked. He’d already lied about being dead, why not this too? 

Gendry cleared his throat. “Last time I saw her, she kicked me in the shins for leaving without telling her.”

Jaime snorted. “That’s her.” 

Brienne had never actually met either girl, despite spending months in their mother’s service. She’d talked about them often, though, so that Brienne felt like she knew them. “I don’t understand. Why aren’t they together?”

Tully put his gun back in his pocket. “The girls had a fight and split up early on. Arya took the cash she’d withdrawn before they left and bought train tickets. She pretended to be a boy traveling between divorced parents.”

“Not very well,” Gendry grumbled. “I figured it out in a couple days.”

Tully ran a hand over his beard. “Sansa decided to trust the man Hollard was working for. Arya did not. So they parted ways. It was foolish, and Arya was lucky to fall in with Gendry here.”

Gendry looked embarrassed at that very faint praise, and at that moment Brienne realized who he reminded her of. Renly. There was a time when his face was so deeply etched in her mind that she would have seen the resemblance immediately. Now his sparkling blue eyes and wry smile were fading from her memory. This boy wasn’t Renly’s, of course, more likely the product of some offshoot of the family or one of Robert’s many rumored bastards. 

“Who was Hollard working for?” Jaime asked warily. They hadn’t heard any whispers of Sansa traveling with a man until this Hardyng kid, and there was no way he’d orchestrated their disappearance. 

Tully hesitated. “I’d rather not say.”

“Not at all, or not to me?” Jaime asked. 

Tully didn’t answer. The sun had finally set, and in the failing light, his face was all shadows. Everyone on that bridge had died, except for him. He must have jumped into the river, swum away like the trout of his House sigil before those who escaped the explosives planted on the bridge were gunned down one by one. 

Jaime dragged a hand through his hair, tugging at the strands in a way that Brienne recognized as frustration. “All right. I’ll leave. Brienne will go with you.”

“What? No. Jaime—” she protested.

Jaime turned to her. “I’m not going to stand in your way, Brienne. I’ll be fine.” He stepped closer, trailed his scarred hand up her shoulder and around until he was cupping her cheek. He leaned in quickly and kissed her, soft and chaste. It tasted like goodbye. “Let me know you’re safe. I can’t go another six months wondering.” 

He stole the keys out of her hand before she could protest. 

“We were headed to the Quiet Isle. Go there first, if you can. The brothers are expecting her,” Jaime said, turning back to the Blackfish.

“You think I’m just going to let you go?” The pistol was back in the Blackfish’s hand. “You’ll go right back to your sister and we’ll have every mercenary in seven kingdoms on our tails by morning.” 

Jaime smirked at him, the sharp-toothed predator’s smile she hated. “My sister is in jail. My brother is … fuck, I have no idea where my brother is. My father is dead. My uncle is just trying to keep the family business afloat. Who exactly in my family do you think gives a rat’s ass about your niece’s claim to Winterfell? Me?” 

The Blackfish nodded. 

Jaime did laugh at that, and Tully glowered, and the gun was still pointed at Jaime and all Brienne could do was move between them, between Jaime and the gun. 

His laugh died instantly. “Brienne—”

“Don’t move.” It was a command. His hand touched the small of her back, briefly, like he could yank her out of the way in time. He couldn’t. She’d trained for this, only she was wearing Kevlar at the time, and still remembered how useless it was when the Stranger came for Renly.

Brienne stared down Tully, tried to ignore the barrel of the gun pointed at her, and the wide eyes of Gendry the wandering bartender, friend of Arya Stark, to whom she probably owed her life. “Jaime had nothing to do with the ambush at the Twins. He’s not the man he once was. None of us are, not after all that’s happened. You just want someone to blame.” It was just a hunch, but a flicker in Tully’s eyes confirmed it. 

“Why is he here, if not for his family’s gain? Tell me that,” Tully spat. The gun came down just a little. Not far enough that she could disarm him, but his finger wasn’t so tight on the trigger anymore.

“We promised Mrs. Stark—”

“For her,” Jaime interrupted. “Brienne wants the girls safe. So I sent her off to find them, not giving a second thought to her safety. And she got hurt. I should have done more than throw money at her. So here I am, trying to do one bloody good thing in my shitty, selfish life. You want to kill me for it, go ahead. You’ll have to sweet talk the stubborn fool out of the way first, because if you so much as touch her I will never stop trying to kill you until the last breath leaves my body.” 

Brienne tensed, expecting a shot, because of course Jaime couldn’t keep his mouth shut. She couldn’t even think about what he’d said, only that he’d stupidly threatened someone, again, on her behalf and now they both going to end up in the river. 

The gun dropped to Tully’s side. 

Brienne didn’t dare breathe. 

“Baelish has her, but only the Seven know where,” he said bluntly. “Find her and I'll get them both to Winterfell. Gendry, give the girl my phone number. I can’t look at Lannister for another minute.” He turned and got back in the truck, slamming the door behind him, while Gendry shuffled up to Brienne and swiftly tapped a number into her phone while she tried to hide her shaking hands.

Both of Jaime’s hands were on her hips, his forehead pressed to her back, holding her up, holding her together. 

Neither spoke as Gendry went back to the truck, its lights cutting a blinding swath through the gloom, and Thoros Myr behind them, who’d never so much as said a single word, got back into his van. Both cars vanished into the night, the rumble of their engines fading swiftly beneath the rush of the river. 

The Shadowcat was still blocking the southbound lane, but Brienne couldn’t move. Her mind was whirling with possibilities. She’d met Petyr Baelish. He was oily, obsequious, but she couldn’t point to anything to show Catelyn why she didn’t trust him. He’d known Mrs. Stark from childhood, so his word had carried more weight than Brienne’s. He was the one who’d gotten the girls into that private school in the first place. 

“What do you know about Baelish?” she asked, turning around. 

Jaime’s arms came around her, carefully, his chin resting on her shoulder. She felt like she might just fly apart without his embrace. A man Catelyn had trusted had stolen her children, and Brienne knew before Jaime spoke that Baelish’s intentions could not have been good.   


He spoke against her throat. “Baelish is the money man for nearly every major criminal organization in King’s Landing. He owns several brothels there.” He hesitated. “And he’s the silent partner in a casino in the Vale.” 

That was so much worse than she’d expected, it was almost comical. Almost. If not for the very real possibility that Petyr Baelish was pimping out Catelyn’s very lovely, very underage daughter. Brienne pulled out of Jaime’s arms. “Which casino?”

Jaime hesitated. “I don’t remember. I’ll have to make some calls.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit, Jaime Lannister. You remember just fine.” She heard the rising hysteria in her voice and couldn’t help it. She’d never been this close to finding one of the girls, and Jaime withholding the information she needed was too much to take.

“Brienne, we’re twenty minutes from the Quiet Isle. They’re waiting for us. Let’s just go, and I’ll make the calls while you get patched up.” His voice was placating, like she was a misbehaving child. She hated it.

“I don’t need to be patched up,” she gritted out, pulling out her phone to call Hyle. 

Jaime jabbed his fingers into her ribs, and she flinched, pain flaring across her chest. 

“What the hell?” she gasped.

He took her by the shoulders, his face as determined as she’d ever seen it. “You will let me look after you for a few thrice-damned hours, for once. Let the monks check you out, Brienne. They’re mostly the silent sort that doesn’t shove their piety down your throat. We can leave at the crack of dawn if you insist, but you will sleep tonight.”

It was much harder to stay angry when he was being stern out of worry, not arrogance. “The lack of sleep was your doing,” she grumbled, trying very hard not to focus on his mouth and failing.

He smiled and bit his lip, heat and pride darkening his eyes. “I’ll let you sleep tonight, scout’s honor.”

“You were a scout?” she asked skeptically. Brienne couldn’t see Tywin Lannister allowing his precious heir to rough it in the wilderness. He might have been more use when they were lost in the woods if he had. 

Jaime grinned. “Gods, no. Get in the car, woman. I’d like to get out of here before anyone else rises from the dead and tries to kill me.”


	8. Chapter 8

The Quiet Isle was so dark at night that it wasn’t visible from the shore. As their tiny boat approached the island, it emerged from the dark only as a patch of deeper darkness until they were nearly upon it. The novice who brought them over to the isle explained that most of the brothers took a vow of silence, and he spoke in barely a whisper as he pointed out the various buildings. 

The brothers’ cloisters dotted the center of the island along with a meeting house where meals were served. A large sept nestled along the low cliff facing the sea. There was even a small hermit’s cave, where brothers could retire for solitude. Visitors used the cave more often, those who required privacy to scream or cry or otherwise disturb the peace of the island. 

Brienne didn’t need to scream, nor cry, though she was still shaken after their confrontation with Brynden Tully. Being poked and prodded by medical personnel was nothing new, though they weren’t usually wearing penitents’ robes. She was just used to having a nurse in the room when a man examined her. That wasn’t an option here, as septas did not visit this retreat. 

Jaime was left pacing in the hall, his phone clamped to his ear. The Elder Brother’s suggestion that he might be more comfortable waiting in the meeting hall was ignored. While Jaime had learned the name of Baelish’s casino easily enough, his colleague Addam Marbrand had also informed Jaime that his sister had been offered a plea bargain. Jaime had already made several calls trying to ascertain the details of that deal. His uncle was strangely unavailable. 

The bite on her arm was infected, which didn’t surprise Brienne. The reddened skin and tenderness were dead giveaways, she just hadn’t had anything stronger than drugstore antibiotic cream handy. Whatever the brother used to cleanse the wound burned, but the worst was the tiny stitch he insisted on putting in her lower lip, which wasn’t healing properly. Brienne strongly suspected all the kissing she’d done the previous night hadn’t helped, but she wasn’t about to tell a celibate man about all the fornicating she’d done. 

The frowning and rather brusque brother examining her swept those thoughts right out of her head when he poked and prodded her ribs, then insisted on an x-ray. Two cracked, neither displaced, just as she expected. He frowned more when the x-ray revealed poorly-healed ribs on her other side as well. Brienne honestly couldn’t tell him if those were from the Whispers or from their captors in the Riverlands. It didn’t really matter, just necessitated Brienne assuring him repeatedly and not for the first time today that Jaime wasn’t beating her. 

The entire endeavor wasn’t necessary, she could have stopped in at an urgent care in the Vale tomorrow, but it made Jaime happy, or at least less irritable, so she allowed it. Funny how he’d once threatened to kill her just to get away from her, and now he hovered over her like a mother hen.

He was weirdly compliant when they were shown to their cabins, insisting that Brienne go first. He kissed her hand by her door and said he’d see her in the morning. Only when he snuck back in hours later did she realize he’d needed to know which cabin was hers. He’d even changed into fresh clothes so he wouldn’t be caught in yesterday’s clothes come morning.

And he was true to his word. They dressed for bed, if sharing a set of men’s pajamas counted. Brienne wore the cozy flannel button-down shirt, and Jaime wore the pants. Just in case they were caught, Jaime wasn’t keen on doing his walk of shame across the island naked. He kissed her briefly and gently, a brush of lips across her temple, her cheekbone, the tip of her nose and finally the corner of her mouth, in deference to the stitch in her lip, and held her as well as he could while crammed into a twin-sized bed. All the adrenaline of the evening drained away, and Brienne fell asleep before she could even think to worry about what tomorrow would bring. 

Bells woke her, tolling across the fog-cloaked island. The view through her window reminded Brienne of home, the coast of Tarth hidden by grey morning fog. 

Brienne shifted and tried not to wake Jaime while still working feeling back into her deadened arm trapped under the pillow. At some point in the night they’d flipped around so she was behind him. It wasn’t the most comfortable night she’d ever spent, her body tensing every time a limb strayed over the edge of the ancient featherbed, but it was warm and oddly familiar. 

Jaime stretched and reached behind him to run a hand up her thigh to her hip. “It’s just the call to morning prayers,” he mumbled sleepily.

Brienne captured his hand and squeezed it. “Have you been here before?” 

Jaime flipped over, his face close beside hers on the pillow. They fit together poorly this way until he flung one leg up over hers and shuffled closer. “Once. Cers had a bout of postpartum depression after Myrcella was born.” He read something in her face and added, “I didn’t stay with her. Not like this.”

Brienne snuggled in closer to him, tucking her face against his neck. “You don’t have to explain.” 

His hand rubbed up and down her back. “I kinda think I do.” 

She sighed and pressed a hand to his chest, scritching her fingertips through his chest hair. He purred like a contented cat. “I’ve always known about her. You had a whole life before we met, and that life was all about her. I don’t have to like it, and you don’t have to apologize for it. It’s just how it is.”

“It’s over, Brienne,” he said quietly, firmly. She tried very hard not to see the hurt warring with resolve in his eyes, but in this he was terribly easy to read.

She shook her head. “But it’s not. She’s your sister. She will always be your sister. And those kids will always bind you if nothing else does. I can’t just pretend she doesn’t exist, and neither can you.” It had taken her a long time to come to terms with Jaime’s relationship with his sister. She didn’t really want to talk about this in bed with him.

Jaime kissed her forehead. “How are you so fucking good.”

Brienne groaned. “Don’t start with that.” 

He chuckled, and his hand stole over to her thigh again, slipped between her legs. “I’d rather start something else. Are you sore?”

She considered that as his fingers teased lightly over her panties. She had been a little uncomfortable sitting in the car yesterday. “No, it’s better now.”

“The brothers will be praying for a while. If you want, I could make you feel even better.” He was rather confident in his skills, and damned if he wasn’t right.

“I could go for a coffee. Unless you had something else in mind?” His offering of coffee and breakfast had been sweet yesterday, and he wasn’t a man she’d ever thought of as sweet. That he might only be sweet with her was a tempting thought. 

He huffed against her hairline and moved his lips to her ear. “Can you be quiet?” 

She arched into his touch. “Quieter than you.”

Jaime ran his mouth in bed the same way he did out of it, but his voice was rough and punctuated with gasps and groans. He invoked the Seven a lot for a man who didn’t believe in them. He’d gotten louder each time they fucked, like he was slowly realizing it didn’t matter if anyone heard them. Except this morning, of course, it did.

He pulled back and grinned. “Oh, I do like a challenge.” 

* * *

Five hours later, they were driving through the Mountains of the Moon along the High Road. The Shadowcat hugged the road more securely than the donkeys that still ferried supplies up to the Eyrie, easily taking all the road’s twists and turns. 

Jaime had been on his phone off and on since they left the Quiet Isle, playing phone tag with his sister’s attorneys and leaving increasingly terse messages for his uncle. They’d stopped for lunch in Lord Harroway’s Town, and Jaime had insisted on ducking into a drugstore. The condoms he bought didn’t surprise her. The makeup did until he explained. Sansa might be wary of a woman so obviously injured, especially once she realized Jaime was involved. 

His face a carefully blank mask as he applied the concealers and powders, Jaime had told her that Robert had become more violent the more he drank, and sometimes he’d forgotten to avoid bruising his wife’s face and arms. Brienne pitied the woman, who’d found her own escape in the same vices her husband preferred, alcohol and extramarital sex. That said, the crimes she was accused of also made Brienne’s blood run cold. Just hearing Jaime’s side of the conversations, it was clear that Cersei would not avoid some kind of punishment. This little adventure she and Jaime were on would end soon. His duties in King’s Landing would not wait much longer, events were accelerating faster than anyone could have predicted. 

Brienne was content to keep quiet and let Jaime work through what he needed to without comment. She understood family duty too well. Soon enough she would need to visit Tarth, even if her father had not yet returned from Lys. Selwyn Tarth was aging, much as she’d like to pretend he wasn’t, and she needed a better handle on the state of affairs at Evenfall. He wouldn’t be able to shoulder the load alone for much longer, though he would never admit it. 

An hour from the casino, Brienne’s phone rang, the bluetooth kicking in and filling the car with Hyle’s breathless voice. “Tell me you love me,” he demanded.

Jaime choked, while Brienne spluttered, “What?”

“I don’t care how much dick you’ve been getting, you are going to love me when you hear this,” Hyle crowed. 

“You’re on speaker, Hyle.” She couldn’t even glance at Jaime, but she could feel his gaze hot on her face. She most definitely did not love Hyle Hunt. Jaime was a different story. The childish devotion she’d once felt for Renly felt shallow as a puddle, her feelings for Jaime deep as the Narrow Sea. 

“So what? Seven fucking hells, Brienne. I’ve got eyes on your girl.” He sounded wired, too much coffee to counter the drinks he’d no doubt been swilling the night before. 

But he was looking at Sansa. Brienne sagged against the driver’s seat in relief before doubt crept in again. “Are you sure?” More than once, she’d chased after a girl certain it was Sansa only to be disappointed. 

She could hear Hyle’s smug smile when he answered, “Pod IDed her.”

“Where?” Casinos were filled with surveillance cameras. If Sansa was outside at the hotel pool, or even better, off the casino property somewhere, that would make it easier to approach her without interference from Petyr Baelish or Harry Hardyng. 

“She’s watching Hardyng play poker on the casino floor. Pod’s keeping an eye on her. You know they jam cell signals in there. When are you getting here? I can’t guarantee she’ll stay there for long. The kid isn’t winning,” Hyle warned.

Brienne’s blood pressure skyrocketed, and her foot pressed the gas pedal harder than was wise, sending them shooting around a corner a little too fast, but the Shadowcat held on. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jaime grab the armrest with white knuckles. “You left Pod alone on the casino floor where Sansa might see him? Where  _ Baelish  _ might see him?” 

“He’s in a coffee shop right off the floor. I didn’t want her sneaking off while I called you.” The patronizing tone of his voice made Brienne grind her teeth. She wondered how much it would take to buy Hyle off. He was so certain of the value of his services, and she did have a pile of gold dragons sitting in her account that Jaime was annoyed she hadn’t spent. He might agree it was worth it to get rid of Hyle and his constant come-ons. 

Brienne took a deep breath. It was supposed to calm her, but only made her head swim. “What if she sees him? Don’t you think she’s going to find it a little suspicious to run into a classmate hundreds of miles from King’s Landing on a school day?”

Hunt snorted. “He’s wearing a hoodie. And honestly, you really think Sansa noticed Pod at all in school? He’s a good kid, but he’s damn near invisible, and with that stutter? Please.” He paused. “Seriously, Brienne, when are you gonna trust me? I pulled you out of some serious shit at the Whispers and all I get is complaints about how I do my job.” 

He wasn’t wrong, but Brienne was tired of having the Whispers thrown back in her face. As soon as Sansa was safe, Brienne hoped she’d never have to see him again. “Get Pod out of there, and keep an eye on her, alright? We’ll be there in an hour, maybe less.”

Hyle hung up without another passive-aggressive comment for once, leaving the car utterly silent. It didn’t last.

“What’s the Whispers?” Jaime asked.

“Ruins, north of Maidenpool. Nothing worth traveling to, trust me.” She kept it simple. No lies.

Jaime was quiet for perhaps a minute. “What serious shit happened there?”

“That wasn’t a big deal.” And it wasn’t. If Hyle hadn’t shown up when he did, perhaps it would have become a big deal. Jaime didn’t need to know that.

“Hunt seemed to think it was.” 

Brienne steered them around a particularly tight turn beside a sharp drop. “He exaggerates.”

“Brienne.” Her name was a weary rebuke. 

The road opened into a long straightaway up a steep grade. She wouldn’t want to bring the Shadowcat up this road in deep winter, but it handled the climb ably now. “Pod and I went looking for Sansa and found our old friends the car thieves instead. Hyle took out Zollo before he could hit me from behind while I stomped the shit out of Timeon’s hand.” 

Jaime cursed under his breath. “So I should have been praying to the Warrior for you every damn night you were gone. Or perhaps the Crone, so you’d have better sense than to keep throwing yourself into danger.”

“I could have beaten them.” Maybe. With luck. But the boy might have been hurt. 

“Brienne, you don’t have to take on the entire damn world by yourself,” Jaime protested. 

Snow dusted the side of the road now. It was easier to focus on her driving than Jaime’s frustration. “What was I supposed to do? Call you?”

Jaime growled low in his throat. “Yes.”

Brienne glanced at him. His face was thunderous. “And you would have dropped everything to come help me track down leads? Come on, Jaime. You sent me away. I didn’t think you cared that much.” It was hard to say that to him now, but back then it was true. Even now she wasn’t sure what was between them. 

“No, you didn’t think. You sure as hell didn’t think much of me.” Jaime was outraged and vicious and it was only now, months after she first heard that tone in his voice, that she heard the hurt under the arrogance. 

There was no reasoning with that hurt, she knew him well enough now to understand that. He needed reassurance, but that was hard to deliver in a moving vehicle. Words were wind, for both of them, really. 

Jaime turned away and started making calls again, shutting her out. His nerves were as frayed as hers were. People he loved were in danger, people he actually knew. Brienne understood that her concern for the Stark girls must seem out of proportion to everyone else, but it had nothing to do with the girls themselves. Catelyn Stark had hired her when no one else would, put her faith in Brienne, shown her affection and trust in ways no woman ever had. She was honestly the only positive female role model Brienne had ever had, and she refused to let Mrs. Stark down, even now, so long after her death. 

Kevan Lannister was still ignoring Jaime’s calls, and none of his other contacts had heard from the man either. Jaime finally resorted to typing out what looked like some very angry emails judging by how hard he was jabbing at his phone screen. 

The tension in the car built steadily as they ascended toward the town of Coldwater, and the Mockingbird Hotel and Casino perched on a ridge above the highway. It had a stunning view, almost as good as the Eyrie. Standing on the balconies of the penthouse suites, a man could pretend he was Lord of the Vale. 

Brienne pulled the Shadowcat into the parking lot and parked behind a vast brown RV covered in bumper stickers from all over Westeros. They looked like the types to settle in for a few days and not leave. It was best if the Shadowcat wasn’t visible on the security cameras that no doubt covered even the parking areas. 

Jaime got out of the car and shoved his phone in his pocket, stretching and groaning as he worked out the stiffness of sitting for so long. He was wearing his ballcap again, as if that would mask his identity for more than a brief glance.

“Why did you get such a tiny car?” Brienne grumbled, stretching up to the blue sky and then bending to stretch down to her toes. Her ribs protested being folded over, but otherwise she was feeling a bit better despite all the driving. The air up here was crisp and clean and cold, cooling her face. It would be cold tonight, if they were still here. Brienne hoped to be far away, Sansa Stark safely away from men like Baelish and Hardyng.

Jaime looked over at her, and his gaze softened. “I didn’t. It was a gift from my father.” 

Brienne snorted. She should have known. The crimson sportscar was elegant, horrifically expensive, and hideously impractical. Tywin Lannister was probably spinning in his crypt for a number of reasons, but the state of the car was surely one of them. It was dusty, scratched a bit along one fender, and innumerable bugs were entombed in its front grill and along the hood. There was a chip in the windshield, and crumbs and gum wrappers littered the floorboards. 

The dig at his father did the job, and the tension between them eased. Brienne walked around the RV and Jaime followed. As they moved into the next aisle, Jaime reached out and took her hand. 

Her first instinct was to pull away. She didn’t notice for a few steps that Jaime was no longer with her. She looked back over her shoulder and found Jaime standing, his arms crossed, that hurt expression on his face again. “So when we’re alone, you melt for me, but out here you’re cold as the damn Wall?”

The accusation burned. She knew where it came from, why it would wound him. She pointed up at the light poles littered throughout the parking lot. “We’re on camera, Jaime.” 

“You think some rent-a-cop gives a shit about two people holding hands in the parking lot?” he scoffed. 

Brienne turned back to him. “Not now, no. But if we get Sansa away from here, Baelish is going to review the security footage. And what’s he going to see?” 

Jaime moved so fast she barely registered it before he had her pinned against the side of a nondescript beige minivan splattered with dried mud. His mouth was right against hers. “He’s going to see a guy who can’t keep his hands off his woman, a man who really needs a distraction right now so he doesn’t have to think about all the shit going down back home that he can’t do a thing about.” 

Brienne wrapped her arms around him, kissing him so she wouldn’t have to think about what  _ his woman _ meant. She was lost in the sudden heat of it, her anxieties about Sansa not forgotten but less urgent for a minute or two. 

Finally Jaime pulled back, his hand trailing down her arm until he reached her hand and linked their fingers. He tugged her away from the minivan. “Now come on, Tarth. Let’s rescue the fair maiden.” 


	9. Chapter 9

The casino was just as gaudy as expected, though not in the same way as Baelish’s properties in King’s Landing. Crude ancient weapons were mounted high on the soaring walls, artfully distressed replica shields interspersed along with walls bearing designs representing the old clans. Jaime recognized the Burned Men, the Black Ears, the Stone Crows, and Painted Dogs. And carved into the pillars and moldings, mockingbirds flying all over the soaring lobby. 

Jaime had visited Baelish brothels on many occasions. Not for himself, the idea of fucking a total stranger repelled him. Robert had once mocked him for that, but Jaime had the last laugh, when Robert had a heart attack lying on a massive pile of furs, a dark-haired, grey-eyed Northern girl riding him straight into the Stranger’s embrace. Cersei hadn’t been laughing, nor had their father. The world still thought Robert died on a hunting trip because Jaime and Sandor Clegane had hauled his wine-soaked bulk out the brothel’s back door and into the Kingswood. 

Jaime’s other visits were all for Tyrion’s sake. Jaime would get a call late at night, drive to what looked like a perfectly ordinary hotel, and follow a primly-dressed older woman down the hallways to a door that revealed one of many themed rooms stinking of heavy perfume and sex. Tyrion never hit the women, never fell in love with them after one painful early mistake, in fact always demanded two or more women at a time for that very reason, but he also never wanted to leave, so Jaime had been called often to fetch him home. 

The thought of Ned Stark’s daughters in one of those places made Jaime’s skin crawl. Brienne had asked him about them, as they drove through the mountains. Jaime did not tell her about the sad-eyed brunette who’d offered to fuck him for free, the woman with the tangled black hair and dirty feet who’d grabbed his cock on her way out of Tyrion’s room, or the girl no older than Arya who peeked out of an open door after Meryn Trant left the room. Jaime didn’t tell her about the rumors of human trafficking that surrounded Baelish, or the Goldcloaks who looked the other way in exchange for use of the girls. He told her that the Stark girls could have easily hidden in a brothel for days, weeks even, without seeing anything untoward or attracting attention. It was true but unlikely.

As they moved through the lobby of the casino/hotel complex, Jaime kept his ballcap pulled low over his face to avoid the many security cameras. He squeezed Brienne’s hand once, then let it go. The original plan had called for Jaime to stay well out of sight until Brienne had a chance to explain his presence, or more likely the two would never meet. Brienne’s optimism that Sansa would accept him was not a sentiment Jaime shared. And much as he was loath to leave Brienne again, especially with so much unsaid between them, his unease with the situation in King’s Landing grew with every hour that Kevan Lannister failed to return his phone calls. 

Brienne was tense, her shoulders tight and her lips pursed, as she surveyed the lobby. The hotel check-in was off to the left, the better to keep gamblers from actually leaving the premises for any reason, and a short line of people waited with their luggage. Ahead the gaping maw of the casino opened, flashing lights and the chimes of the slot machines beckoning gamblers inside. Jaime saw at least three people sitting in front of the machines with their luggage beside them, a drink in one hand and the other on the machine’s handle. 

Hunt’s last text had said that Hardying was still playing poker, and Sansa was feeding copper stars into a slot machine nearby. Half an hour earlier, his chips nearly gone, Hardyng had screamed at her that she was bad luck. Hunt had quickly turned his remaining petty cash into chips so he could join the game and allow the boy to win a few hands, but his funds would be nearly depleted by now. They could not afford to miss this chance to get Sansa alone, so Jaime needed to take his place at the poker table and pray to the Seven that Sansa Stark did not recognize him.

“Ready?” Jaime asked, grabbing Brienne’s attention one more time. 

Brienne turned her gaze on him and smiled, but the line between her brows betrayed her worry. “Are you?”

Jaime winked at her, hoping to bolster her confidence. “Don’t worry about me. I can play the hapless rich mark, let the boy hustle me a bit.”

“Just don’t do your Ashemark accent,” Brienne cautioned, a truer smile curving her lush lips. If not for the cameras, he would kiss that smile. 

“Why not? My Ashemark accent is excellent,” he said, using the distinctive cadence of the rural Westerlands. The accent was so thick it sounded like a parody of a rural accent, but it was accurate enough. Even he had trouble understanding rural Westerlanders once they started throwing their odd slang into the mix. 

She rolled her eyes. “It’s the worst, he’ll see right through it. Go posh, it suits you better.”

He glanced down at himself, the crisp blue button-down and designer jeans, the expensive Tyroshi watch and fine Myrish loafers. “I don’t know what you mean,” Jaime teased, pretending to be affronted. Easy enough to channel one of his moneyed, idle cousins for a few minutes, he and Tyrion had mocked them often enough. 

Brienne’s smile widened for a moment, then she schooled her features into their usual sternness. He loved that she let him see beneath her armor, let her know her warmth and softness before she started to turn away from him.

“Brienne?”

She looked back expectantly, none of the wariness of their early days clouding her expression. 

“Catelyn Stark would be so proud of you.” And if she wasn’t, she’d be wrong. Most people in Brienne’s shoes would have moved on to another client and never given those girls another thought. But not Brienne. Her loyalty had no price, and no end. 

Brienne’s eyes grew shiny before she blinked away her tears. “Go, before I have to kiss you.”

Jaime grinned. “Well, I am irresistible.”

Brienne groaned and shoved his shoulder. “Gods, you are annoying. Go away.”

“As my lady commands.” Jaime stepped out of her reach before she could shove him again, and headed for the casino. 

He couldn’t let himself worry about the task before her, he needed to focus on his part of the plan. It had been a long time since he’d needed to hide in plain sight, but he’d never lost the knack. It helped that Sansa had not known him with a beard, and they’d only met briefly a handful of times. Hardyng wouldn’t recognize him at all. The danger was in Baelish or his security team noticing Jaime Lannister in the casino. 

Keeping an eye on the gamblers around him, Jaime went to the cashier and exchanged a wad of cash for chips. Most of the other patrons had that sort of dead-eyed stare that came from hours spent mindlessly feeding coins into a machine, but a few were more alert. The security guys were obvious to Jaime, despite their efforts to blend in. Their hooded university sweatshirts concealed shoulder holsters and earpieces. Considering the relative isolation of this casino, the distance from law enforcement and the volume of money flowing through the room every day, perhaps that was necessary, but it felt like overkill. This place had secrets, and they were bound to be unpleasant. 

But that wasn’t his mission, not today. Today he dumped his chips in his pocket and searched the casino floor keeping an eye out for Sansa Stark, or Alayne Stone as she was calling herself. He had a vague memory of the girl from her brief, ill-fated relationship with Joffrey, but she would be older now, and she’d dyed her hair. Jaime wondered if he’d even recognize her.

Until he did. By the Gods, the girl was the spitting image of her mother in her youth. Tywin had once tried to matchmake between Jaime and Lysa Tully, back in their boarding school days. Jaime had infuriated him by ignoring Lysa in favor of listening to her uncle’s war stories and gazing appreciatively at her older sister, who was his age and far more to his taste. But Cat barely spared him a glance, constantly on the phone complaining about her college football player boyfriend, Brandon Stark, and his endless partying. Even then Petyr Baelish had been hovering around Catelyn Tully, his unrequited crush on his babysitter creepily obvious. But that was a long time ago. 

Sansa sat at a slot machine, idly feeding it coins now and then. A glass that seemed to hold soda sat before her, untouched. She barely flinched when she won a small sum, her eyes unfocused, her teeth worrying her lower lip. She wore a pale blue shirtdress with a floral pattern, a silver sandal dangling off her foot. Her long legs and slim arms were bare despite the chill outside, and a long, dark braid trailed over her shoulder. The darkness of her hair emphasized her pale complexion. He didn’t see any bruises, at least.

How long had she been inside this casino? Hunt had picked up her trail two days ago, so perhaps three or four days? And where had she been before this? Was Baelish using her to fleece rich young men or was there another plot afoot here? Jaime hoped they would be able to find out. Baelish should pay for his crimes.

Harry Hardyng’s poker table was perhaps 30 feet away from Sansa. She’d chosen a slot machine out of his line of sight, thank the Mother for small favors, but that meant his own seat at the table might draw her eye. Jaime would have to chance it. Hunt was clearly tapped out, sweaty and eyeing his competitors nervously. 

Jaime ducked his head as he approached the table, standing behind a vacant chair while the hand finished. Hunt's eyes widened when he spotted Jaime, but he quickly masked his surprise and folded with a disgusted huff. He really had thought Brienne was lying, the idiot. Hunt got up and left the game grumbling about shit luck, but he was clearly relieved. 

Jaime could just glimpse Sansa out of the corner of his eye. He fumbled his way through a few hands, bidding big and finding losing harder than anticipated, especially since he needed Hardyng in particular to win enough to stay at the table. Finally he saw Podrick out of the corner of his eye, walking by and striking up a conversation with Sansa. Either she’d go with him, or she’d bolt and they could follow. 

“Sir, call or fold,” the dealer prompted. 

Jaime looked at his cards again. Damn it, he could win this one. He folded and cautiously eyed Hardyng, making sure the boy’s attention remained on his cards. He really was a dick. He’d spent five minutes pontificating about greedy bitches and how they were only good for one thing. Either the boy was hiding a charming side or Sansa had other reasons for attaching herself to this up-jumped cretin. Inheriting money didn’t make a man noble, it only made him rich. 

Jaime’s phone rang, and he fished it out of his pocket.

_ Kevan Lannister - Home _

“No phones at the table,” the dealer admonished. 

Jaime glanced at his cards. He should keep Hardyng busy a few more minutes, but he couldn’t miss this call. “Fold.” Jaime dropped his cards and pushed back from the table. He moved a few feet away before picking up.

“Where have you been?” he growled, continuing away from the table. It wouldn’t do to blow his cover now. 

“Jaime, sweetling.” Not Kevan. A woman’s voice. But not Kevan’s wife, Dorna. Her voice was high and sweet. This voice was huskier, familiar from decades of chiding him to bend to his family’s will. 

“Genna?” What was his aunt doing at her brother’s house? For that matter, what was Genna doing in King’s Landing? She hated the capital.

“Where are you?” she asked. “I know you’re not in Riverrun.”

“The Vale,” he admitted, moving past a pair of elderly women arguing about which machines to claim for the evening. He leaned against a pillar, keeping Hardyng in view. 

Genna muttered a prayer to the Mother. “Daven said you’d run off after a woman, but I didn’t believe him.” She sighed heavily. “Any other day, Jaime, I’d be thrilled for you. But today, I need you to come home.”

A stone settled in Jaime’s stomach. He was prepared for Kevan’s stern bluster, his endless lectures about family duty. Genna putting aside her matchmaking to admit she needed him was far more worrisome. No one needed Jaime, they never had. If she did, that meant… “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

The watery breath Genna drew was answer enough. 

“I can get a charter flight tonight, maybe in the morning—wait, how did he die?” Murder was absurdly common the last few years. Kevan would never be a target on his own, far too mild-mannered to attract that kind of ire, but with Tywin dead, Tyrion fled, and Cersei in jail, he was head of the Casterly Lannister empire and that was a precarious position envied by many. 

“A heart attack,” she assured him. “In his office. Poor thing was slumped over some papers for close to a day before anyone found him. He’d given his staff the afternoon off yesterday, and they had an off-site meeting this morning.” 

Jaime took a deep breath, the cacophony of the casino around him grating on his frayed nerves. Suddenly he missed the Quiet Isle, its simplicity and calm. He missed the cave where a man could scream and rage and still hide his weakness from the world. He missed the narrow, cozy bed he’d shared with Brienne. “They should test for poisons,” he directed his aunt.

That was why she’d called. Genna was eminently capable, far more than she ever let on to her brothers, who had tended to patronize her even as they spoiled her. But she understood that the family required a public face, and it was not that of a middle-aged socialite best known for her outrageous fashion sense. 

“Of course, sweetling. Do you take me for a fool?” She paused. “Will you bring this woman who has you haring across two kingdoms to catch her?” 

Jaime smiled. Even now, Genna’s interest in securing the next generation of their House continued. He didn’t truly blame her, he’d never shown an ounce of interest in a woman he could publically claim. “No, aunt. She has her own duties to tend.” 

“But I will meet her?” It was less a question than an order. 

“I hope so.” Jaime scratched the back of his head beneath the ballcap. He couldn’t risk taking it off, not here. Hardyng still had a healthy pile of chips in front of him along with a fresh bourbon despite the early hour, and Jaime would not take his eyes off him unless he spotted Baelish or he had word from Podrick or Brienne. 

Brienne would like Genna, once she got used to her. His aunt was a force of nature, overwhelming with her easy affection, loud voice, and strong perfume, but so was Brienne. She might hail from the Stormlands, but Brienne was not the sudden destructive howl of a hurricane. She was a slow-moving storm, a steady rain that wore away all resistance so slowly he didn’t notice it until he was entirely at her mercy. It wasn’t such a bad place to be. 

He could see the sympathy in her eyes even now, the gentle way she would touch and hold him. Jaime’s default, in his years with Cersei, had been to seethe silently, allowing pain and anger to build until he could loose it in violence or sex. His work had provided ample opportunity to pummel a man under the guise of training or a mission. And as for Cersei, she’d liked him best when they were tearing at each other, the fire raging between them consuming everything in its path. 

Genna cut into his thoughts. “Let me know when you’ve made arrangements. There are decisions to be made about your sister’s defense as well. I’ll send you the documents to review en route.”

“Of course.” Jaime nearly hung up, but then he asked, “How are you?”

Genna did not answer immediately. “I am a Lannister alone in the world, without the walls of Casterly Rock around me. I will feel better with you here, but I will soldier on regardless. Your father would expect no less.” 

She was right, Tywin Lannister had tolerated no weakness, not since his beloved wife left this world and took any softness he once possessed with her. Jaime ended the call just in time to see a neat stack of chips pushed in front of Hardyng. The boy’s luck wouldn’t last, but as long as he was occupied long enough to get Sansa Stark away, Jaime didn’t care. He hoped Hardyng pissed away every penny, though he’d rather the gold not line Baelish’s pockets. 

Before he could tuck his phone back into his pocket, it vibrated with a text.

_ Coffee shop by the hotel gardens. Stay out of sight.  _

Hunt. Jaime had plans for the man, though the need to return to King’s Landing as soon as possible complicated matters. It did simplify one point, however. Sansa Stark need not know that Jaime had been involved in her rescue. 

His steps quickened as he left the casino and make his way through the small indoor mall connecting the casino to the hotel complex. The monstrosity was designed to keep gamblers from ever needing to leave, its vaulted ceiling painted to resemble the sky to reinforce the illusion. A hair salon sat next to a barber shop, a clothing store, a pharmacy, and a dry cleaner. A food court filled with ethnic food vendors wafted tempting scents. 

On the far side of the mall, Jaime arrived at a hotel lounge that would later offer happy hour for guests. Employees were already setting up for the coming rush, but Jaime moved through without making eye contact. The garden was at the center of the hotel, inside a glassed-in atrium. It looked strangely familiar, a sensation that intensified as he spotted Brienne’s flaxen hair at a table near the spreading branches of a rare slender weirwood tree. Sansa’s dark head was close beside her. The garden was new enough that the trees and bushes didn’t provide much cover, so Jaime turned aside and climbed a set of stairs to a balcony overlooking the garden. 

Once at the top of the stairs, Jaime realized why it all looked so familiar. The garden was a triangle with the weirwood at its center, artificial streams flanked by beds of wildflowers, graceful elms and young redwoods. It was the godswood at Riverrun. Clearly Baelish’s obsession with Catelyn Stark had not dimmed over the years. He’d dallied with her sister, even married her briefly, but his fixation on Sansa told the tale of a man who’d never gotten over his youthful crush.

Jaime turned and found Hunt standing by the railing watching the group below. He hadn't had a chance in the casino to really take the man's measure. Now he did, and Jaime wasn't impressed. Nondescript brown hair and eyes, plain face, height a bit below average, clothes slightly wrinkled and ill-fitting. Jaime couldn't believe that Hunt had ever thought he had a chance in any of the seven hells with Brienne. Even without his shitty behavior to her in the past, Hunt wasn’t her type. He wasn’t really anyone’s type. The man was entirely forgettable, ideal for a private investigator but not helpful when it came to women. 

Jaime reached the man and leaned against the railing beside him. “Hunt.”

Hunt nodded. “Lannister.” There was something about his expression that Jaime didn’t like. He looked like a man who might sell Sansa Stark to the highest bidder.

They both watched the trio seated at the table below. Brienne was showing Sansa photos on her phone, while Pod played with the straw in his drink. Sansa looked even more tired in sunlight, the deep, ashy brown of her hair highlighting the dark smudges under her eyes. Playing Alayne Stone, living on the run, was taking its toll on her. Perhaps Baelish’s company was as well. 

Hunt shifted uneasily, scratching the patchy stubble dotting his jaw. “You think she’ll run?”

Jaime considered the girl for a moment. She was skittish to be sure, her gaze darting around the gardens, her fingers nervously picking apart the cookie in front of her. “I hope not.”

Hyle turned to look at him. “So, you and Brienne.”

Jaime didn’t bother returning his gaze. “Yeah.” He wasn’t about to share more than that, when he and Brienne hadn’t even talked about  _ them  _ yet. Between Sansa and his family, they’d had more pressing concerns. 

Hyle turned back toward the garden. “Didn’t see that one coming. I thought you were Renly all over again.” He chuckled. “But you’re actually fucking her.”

Jaime’s grin was sharp, his voice scathing. “Lucky for me, Brienne has a high tolerance for assholes.” 

“What?” Hyle’s bland face betrayed only confusion. 

“She must, if she tolerates you.” It wasn’t any fun when they didn’t understand the insult. “I only tried to kill her a time or two. You conned her, made her feel like shit, and stole her panties as a trophy.”

Hyle dropped back a step, away from Jaime and out of sight of the group below. “That wasn’t me,” he stammered, all his unearned confidence gone.

“No? Then you only egged him on? Bought him a beer when he won and laughed when he told his story?” Jaime hadn’t raised his voice yet, and he wouldn’t. Tywin Lannister might have been a shit father, but he excelled at teaching his sons how to intimidate the sheep, and Hyle Hunt was most definitely a sheep. 

Hunt gaped, mouth open, for so long Jaime wished he had something to toss in there. Coins, or peanuts, whatever would choke the man. “It was just a joke,” he finally said with a shrug. “I didn’t think she’d take it so hard.” 

Jaime wanted so much to punch Hunt’s smug face, and three months ago he’d done just that to another asshole who’d disrespected Brienne, but he didn’t want to fuck up his hand further. “That’s bullshit and you know it.” 

Hyle looked over the railing again. Now Sansa was talking on Brienne’s phone, most likely to the Blackfish, while Pod pretended to admire the foliage nearby and Brienne doctored the fresh coffee Pod had just brought her.   


“At least I was here when Brienne needed someone,” Hunt muttered.

“Yes, trying desperately to get into her bed. How noble of you,” Jaime retorted. 

Defiance finally flashed in Hunt’s eyes, made him raise his jaw in challenge. “At least I’m honest about what I want.” 

“And what  _ do  _ you want, Hunt? Because you are not getting Brienne.” Even if she never let Jaime into her bed again, and he damn well hoped she would, Hunt didn’t stand a chance.

Hyle smirked. “If you think that’s your call, you don’t know her as well as you think you do.” 

Jaime smirked back, then he grabbed Hunt’s hand, bending his middle finger back until the man grimaced. “She’s too courteous to send you packing, but I’m not. Don’t worry, you’ll be well paid for your time and inconvenience. I owe you for helping her find Sansa Stark, and for failing so spectacularly in wooing Brienne. And a Lannister always pays his debts. But first, you’re going to give me a name.” 

* * *

  
  


The sun was already setting in the western sky when they emerged from the hotel, scurrying across the parking lot in the cold. Brienne had not dressed for cold weather, and the wind cut straight through her flannel shirt. Sansa was even colder, cloaked in Podrick’s hoodie over her thin shirtdress. 

But they were out of that casino and Harry Hardyng hadn’t even come looking for Sansa, much less called her phone. She’d left it in her hotel room, in the end, after Podrick factory reset it and destroyed the SIM card. They would buy her a burner phone the first chance they had, but for now she didn’t need one. 

The cars in the lot were dusted with snow, making it harder to find Jaime’s Shadowcat. Hyle was supposed to meet them there with his car, since the Shadowcat only held two people. Jaime and Pod would have to ride with Hyle, a compromise she suspected neither man would enjoy.

That impression was confirmed when she finally led them around a snow-crusted RV and found Jaime sitting on the hood of his car, his bag at his feet. Hyle was inside his rusted-out sedan with the heater running. Pod scurried over to join him. Her heart sank. 

Jaime ducked his head, hiding his face from view. He’d insisted that Brienne not tell Sansa about his involvement, but she’d ignored that. 

Brienne unlocked the Shadowcat. “Why don’t you get in the car? I’ll be right there,” she told the girl.

Sansa hesitated in front of Jaime, like she wanted to say something, but got into the car without a word. 

Brienne sat gingerly on the cold, slippery hood beside him. “Is it helicopter time?”

Jaime pulled off his ballcap and scratched his head. “Towncar. Should be here in a few minutes. I have a charter flight to catch. If Baelish is looking, it might confuse him for awhile, if you go west and I go east.” 

Brienne pressed closer to him. “Is that the only reason?”

He started to reach for her hand, and hesitated. He still feared Sansa’s reaction. The girl hadn’t been happy to hear that a Lannister was part of her rescue team, but Brienne had called the Blackfish, and that had sealed the girl’s trust in them. At least to a point. It would be easier for Sansa and Brendan Tully to accept her help if Jaime wasn’t part of the package anymore. She hated that other people didn’t see the man she did when they looked at Jaime, but her own feelings had changed slowly, she couldn’t expect others to see his virtues immediately either.

Brienne took his hand and squeezed it, already missing his touch and he wasn’t even gone yet. Two days, that was all they’d had. It seemed unfair to have only a taste and then have this snatched away from her again. 

Jaime looked at her, and her heart clenched again. “My uncle died,” he said simply. “Maybe a heart attack, maybe not, but I have to go back.” 

“Oh, Jaime.” She gathered him into her arms. He resisted at first, but soon surrendered, tucking his face against her neck. He and his uncle weren’t close, but it was still a blow, and one Jaime didn’t need with everything else going on. 

They stayed like that long enough that Hyle honked his horn. Brienne casually flipped him off behind Jaime’s back. 

“I have a confession to make,” Jaime mumbled into her neck.

Brienne pulled back, shoulders tense even as Jaime’s hands trailed over her and came to rest around her waist. “What did you do?” Knowing Jaime, he’d spent an obscene sum of money for no reason. Or this was all a ruse and Lannister goons were about to take Sansa back to King’s Landing. She hated that she couldn’t discount the possibility.

But he looked sheepish, not cold or calculating. “I met a guy at a party a couple months ago, who said he knew you. Ginger by the name of Connington.”

Brienne froze. She would be happy never to hear that name again. Even now, the thought of him made her nauseous. He wasn’t even especially attractive, red hair, bushy beard, sturdy build, but he didn’t have to look up at her, and she’d liked the sound of his laugh. At first. Before it was directed at her. “What did he say?”

Jaime shook his head. “I’d rather not repeat it. The point is, I broke his jaw. I thought you might mind, except Hunt just told me that Connington was the guy, the one from the bet.”

Brienne was going to kill Hyle. Slowly. “You broke his jaw?”

Jaime nodded, and a small smirk broke through his serious expression. “He may have cried.”

Brienne snorted a laugh. “He would. I dislocated his shoulder in training and he screamed like a little girl.” Oh, that moment had been sweet. 

Jaime’s grin widened. He wasn’t perfect, his teeth were a little crooked, and he had laugh lines around his mouth, crow’s feet settling around his eyes, but she loved him, and oh wasn’t that a bitter pill to swallow right now. 

“So you’re not mad at me?” he asked hopefully. 

“No, of course not. Just don’t make a habit of it.”

He sighed, and pulled her close again. His car would be here soon, and Hyle would lose patience and honk again. “You need to go.”

“Yeah.”

“You gonna remember you have a phone this time? Let me know when you get Sansa and Arya settled in?” That uncertain note was back in his voice again. 

“Of course. And then I’ll bring the car back,” she promised.

Jaime shook his head. “Don’t. I promised the Shadowcat to Hunt, as payment for his help. You’ll have to use the money I’ve been sending to buy yourself something with more legroom.”

Brienne rolled her eyes. “You did not promise him this damned car.” 

Jaime pulled back again just enough that she could see his smile. “I did. I hope it brings him just as much luck as it did us.”

“You’re awful.”

“I know.” He had the nerve to sound proud of that. 

“I could just get a ride to the airport and fly back to Tarth,” she reminded him. She should. Perhaps her father would be back by then. If not, she’d have time to poke through his files without interference.

“You could,” Jaime allowed. “Or you could come see me. I have boring meetings all day and then I will probably spend most of the evenings helping Tommen with his homework. And Myrcella will be home from Dorne soon, whinging about how uncool I am not letting her stay with her boyfriend over the school break.”

Brienne smiled. He tried to make it sound awful, but mostly he just sounded terrified by the responsibility. Jaime would be fine, once he set his mind to the task. And perhaps with a bit of help. World leaders weren’t so different from spoiled children, after all. 

Across the parking lot, headlights turning into the lot caught their eye. “Time’s up,” she said softly.

Jaime winced. “Not yet. Seriously, Brienne, promise me you’ll call. I can’t take another six months not knowing if you’re safe.” 

Brienne brushed his messy hair out of his eyes. “I promise.” She could do that much for him. 

The car moved inexorably toward them. Jaime reluctantly got to his feet. He offered her his hand and pulled her up to join him. “Be careful. The Blackfish is slippery, and he has his own agenda.”

She nodded. “I know. I won’t just leave the girls with him. They’ll want to see their brothers, for a start, and their cousin.” 

“And when you’re done, you’ll come see me.” Jaime didn’t bother to make it a question this time, though neither was it a demand. 

“We’ll talk.” Their plans had been upended so many times, she hesitated to promise anything. 

Jaime leaned in and touched her cheek, slid his hand to nape of her neck and pulled her close. He waited a fraction of a second, then kissed her, a reminder of all she’d be missing tonight and all the nights until she saw him again. Because she would see him, if he had to cross a thousand leagues to reach her. She could see it in his eyes. 

“This isn’t goodbye. I’m done saying goodbye to you,” Jaime said fiercely, picked up his bag, and turned to meet the sleek black sedan just pulling to a stop. He didn’t look back as he got into the car.

It had pulled away before Brienne could move. Her hands shook as she got into the car. 

Sansa was looking at her with wide eyes. “He kissed you,” she said, half disapproving and half envious. 

“He does that,” Brienne answered, simultaneously amazed it was true and upset that he was leaving. “Let’s get out of here before someone notices you’re missing.”

Sansa’s eyes widened and her gaze turned back to the brightly-lit casino looming over them. 

The Shadowcat purred to life, and Brienne followed Jaime’s hired car out of the parking lot. His driver turned left, and for a moment she desperately wanted to follow. But she couldn’t. Mrs. Stark’s girls were her responsibility. She would see them safely home. Only then could she consider her next move.

Brienne turned right, Hyle and Pod following behind, and headed down the mountain toward the Bloody Gate.


End file.
